June 14, 2002 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE 11

on the airoff the press

Showtime will keep Queer as Folk for two more years

by John Graves

Showtime has picked up Queer as Folk, which ends its second season on June 16, for two more 16-episode seasons. The third season will get underway next March with new shows airing Sunday nights at 10 pm.

Queer as Folk merchandise such as magnets, T-shirts, coffee mugs, martini glasses and posters of the show's characters may soon appear on store shelves. Showtime is premiering the merchandise on the queer.sho.com web site run by Showtime and licenser 10% Productions.

Showtime will air a marathon of Queer Duck episodes after the June 16 Folk season finale, and is in the process of developing a full-length cable film of the gay animated series. All of the three-minute Queer Duck episodes can be seen on the network's web site, Sho.com.

Grodin vs. the shock jocks

60 Minutes II commentator Charles Grodin charges in his new book, I Like It Better When You're Funny, that radio shock jocks and TV talk-show hosts Don Imus, Howard Stern, Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh "foster a culture that tolerates racism, homophobia and anti-Semitism," according to USA Today's Peter Johnson.

In the book, Grodin says, "These guys are spreading too much venom and too much meanness, and there's another way to do TV and radio, without screaming and without all this ugliness."

Grodin takes issue especially with jokes about minorities, gays and Jews saying, "They perpetuate stereotypes. If you don't think so, just look at the anti-Semitism and racism still around. We can't afford to laugh at certain things. Pedophilia jokes just aren't funny."

No Nurses Ball this year

The producers of General Hospital and Port Charles have decided not to air the Nurses Ball this year, ending an eight-year tradition of having a special episode in conjunction with June's Day of Compassion to raise AIDS awareness.

In a statement, the producers of General Hospital explained, "We are observing the Day of Compassion on General Hospital, just in a different way. We will continue to refer to AIDS issues in future storylines."

Actress Laura Bell Bundy, who played Marah on Guiding Light, will appear in an upcoming Broadway musical adaptation of the John Waters cult classic Hairspray. The play, starring Harvey Fierstein in the role immortalized by the late, great Divine, will

Girl, now playing on Showtime.

Peters plays Bailey, an American actress with a 20-year career on Broadway, who owns and operates the Two Sisters pub in a seaside town near Dublin with her partner Bobbie (Ward). The couple suddenly find themselves parents when they take Bobbie's nephew Alan into their family after his parents are killed in an auto accident. Win a Lowell

Win a private decorating consultation for your home from gay interior decorator Christopher Lowell, whose show, the Christopher Lowell Show airs on the Discovery channel weekdays at 2 and 3 pm, by entering Christopher Lowell's Marvelous Makeover Sweepstakes at Discovery.com.

try out in Seattle this month and will begin Hanks' homecoming previews at New York's Neil Simon Theater July 18.

Ouch! Stubble burn!

"If you are not used to kissing someone with hair on their lip, it does take some getting used to" actor Matthew St. Patrick told People about the first time he locked lips with Michael C. Hall, his co-star on the HBO's cable series Six Feet Under.

Nevertheless, St. Patrick said he has no qualms about playing a gay man on the show.

"It's exciting to portray a character who has a different perspective than I do,” he said. "When people love each other, that's what you see. The objective for me is to get people to look at us as a couple and say, 'Wow.' Sudden family on the Emerald Isle

Bernadette Peters and Rachel Ward portray an Irish lesbian couple living quietly in the countryside in the cable movie Bobbie's

Actor Tom Hanks returned to his old high school in Oakland, California to dedicate a renovated theater named after retired drama teacher Rawley T. Farnsworth.

Hanks named Farnsworth as his favorite teacher during his acceptance speech for the 1993 Best Actor Oscar-and inadvertently

outed him in the process. He won the award for his portrayal of a gay lawyer living with AIDS.

Hanks, who campaigned to have the theater named after Farnsworth, reportedly donated over $100,000 towards the $465,000 cost of the renovation.

American Pie 3: The Gay Generation?

Adam Hertz has written another sequel to the film American Pie. While producer-director Chris Weltz, who co-directed the original with his brother Paul, will only produce American Pie III, he told Entertainment Weekly he has a definite ideas on how this sequel should play out.

"I want American Pie to be two words: all gay. Now there's a plot twist. I might even direct that one," he added.

John Graves is the producer and host of Gaywaves, a lesbian-gay public affairs show on Cleveland's WRUW 91.1 FM Fridays at 7:30 pm, and at http://radio.cwru.edu. Dave Haskell, Jim McGrattan and Kim Jones also contributed to this column.

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