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GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE June 22, 2001

on the airoff the press

'Queer as Folk' becomes Showtime's top series

by John Graves

Queer as Folk has become Showtime's highest-rated series, reports TV Guide correspondent Пleane Rudolph.

Despite the show's gay focus and very explicit sex scenes, executive producer Tony Jonas said Queer as Folk elicited very little controversy and certainly "didn't cause World War III."

“Obviously no one else has gone this far, but maybe this is the beginning of a change in what we're willing to accept on TV." added Stacy Lynn Koerner, an analyst at the advertising firm TN Media

Koerner explained some of the reason for the lack of controversy was because Queer as Folk "is not being promoted as a generalaudience vehicle. And it's very clear what the content is from the title."

Rudolph noted that the show has become a bit of a cult favorite, with some devoted fans paying up to $75,000 to for a walk-on appearance. The walk-ons were "sold" as a fundraiser during the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation Awards in San Francisco two weeks ago.

The season finale, set to air this Sunday, June 24, promises several cliffhangers that won't be resolved until the series returns with new episodes next January.

Ready to Buy a Home Together? Attend a no-cost, no-obligation seminar with guest speaker Toby Oster, Financial Advisor, American Express Financial Services. We will discuss how to avoid financial restrictions placed on lesbian and gay couples, ways to protect yourself, your partner and your home, and how to protect your rights. Questions & answers to follow.

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A new girlfriend and a Camaro

Lesbian rocker and mom Melissa

Etheridge talked to People magazine's Tom

Gliatto and Julie Jordan about turning 40. her soon-to-be-released album Skin, her new girlfriend, her just released tell-all biography. The Truth is... and her break-up with Julie Cypher.

Etheridge, who quipped, "Turning 40 is like turning 180 in rock-star years." threw a big birthday bash for herself and bought herself a new car.

"A '67 Camaro convertible, white with a blue stripe on the front." Etheridge said. "It's such a muscle car! I want to jump up and down and go 'Woo woo!'"

"I figure I'm doing the early mid-life crisis, dating a 26-year-old (Popular star Tammy Lynn Michaels) and buying a Camaro. Why not?"

Although on the surface her split with Cypher seems amicable by most standards— the two women share adjoining homes so they can raise their children together. Etheridge told Gliatto and Jordan, “This isn`t all tea and honey. There's sadness and anger."

Besides her rise to stardom, her coming out and her relationship with Cypher. Etheridge talks about sexual abuse at the hands of her older sister when she was between the ages of 7 and 10.

On her new relationship with Michaels. Etheridge told Gliatto and Jordan. “Am I in love? Oh God, ask me that in a few months. It's too soon. It's new and it's exciting and I'm happy."

USA Today's Ann Oldenburg says Etheridge's split with Cypher came when Cypher told her she was "no longer gay." Cypher also had an affair with k.d. lang shortly after she and Etheridge became a couple

Still shocked about Cypher's declaration of her change in sexual orientation, Etheridge told Oldenburg, “I didn't understand it then. I don't understand it now." Etheridge and her friend Meg Ryan had a good laugh over rumors the two were dating, and that she told Ryan, "If the world wants to think I'm dating Meg Ryan, I win!”

'I think she was beautiful'

Selma Hyack talked to USA Today showbiz columnist Jeannie Williams from Mexico where the actress is working on her starring role in Frida, an upcoming film biography of bisexual Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. Despite being confined to a wheelchair most of her life, Kahlo had many affairs with both. men and women.

Hyack, who was born in Mexico. told Williams that she thought Kahlo was very sexy. "or she would not have seduced so many men and women around the world with such success." Hyack has love scenes with

two women in the film..

"I think she was beautiful," Hyack added.

Paper marks AIDS decades

Special thanks to USA Today for a number of multi-page feature articles commemorating the 20th anniversary of the discovery of the AIDS epidemic which ran in the paper for several days in a row.

Gay comedy started out straight

Openly gay writer-actor Dan Bucatinsky has changed All Over the Guy, his film adaptation of his play I Know You Are, but What am I. from a story about the relationship between a neurotic man and his girlfriend to one about the relationship between two men.

Bucatinsky told Entertainment Weekly he made the change, "because I thought a straight screenplay would get lost in a sea of romantic comedies. A friend said no matter what, when you make a gay-themed movie you have a built-in audience, which is the curse with a film like this, and a blessing.”

All Over the Guy, which was executiveproduced by Bucatinsky's boyfriend, director Dan Roos, will be released August 24. Pride on TV

Pride month is almost over and, for the second year in a row, the television industry has not let us down. Showtime aired all three of the Tales of the City series in block programming, while Bravo and the Independent Film Channel have aired lesbian, gay bisexual and transgender themed films almost every night all month long.

Lesbians and gays in entertainment took center stage on MSNBC Reports examination of gay Hollywood and Bravo's re-airing of the documentary The Celluloid Closet,

based on the book by the late gay film histo-

Vito Russo.

Special commendations go to Bravo for premiering Gay Riviera, a new reality series focusing on a group of lesbians and gays living in New York Cuy and Miami.“

A Bravo special, Goa Mardi Gras, a look at the pageantry of Sydney, Australia's annual lesbigay Mardi Gras festivities that have become famous around the world.

Special commendations also to PBS for featuring Scout's Honor, the Sundance-award winning documentary abouta straight Scout's battle to get the Boy Scouts of America to change their anti-gay policies, as the first offering in the new season of its documentary series P.O. V. And thanks to PBS stations around Ohio, who aired this very special program.

John Graves is the producer and höst 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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