January 31, 2003
GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE 11
on the airoff the press
This Way Out is in a financial struggle to stay on the air
by John Graves
This Way Out, the world's only internationally distributed radio program focusing on gay, lesbian, bi, and trans issues and culture, is facing a financial struggle to remain on the air.
The 14-year-old program is heard on over 125 stations in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and throughout Europe; on Radio For Peace International global shortwave, and on PlanetOut.com.
In Ohio, This Way Out can be heard on WCSB 89.3 FM in Cleveland Thursdays from 5:30 to 6 pm, and on WAIF 88.3 FM in Cincinnati, as part of Alternating Currents from 3 to 5 pm Saturdays.
In their current drive to keep This Way Out alive, the producers of the show, thanks to an arrangement with the Pacifica Radio Archives, are offering listeners copies of two classic documentaries and a popular music program as thank you gifts for their taxdeductible contributions.
The three programs being offered to donors are Diminished Capacity, the story of the 1977 assassinations of San Francisco mayor George Moscone and openly gay supervisor Harvey Milk; The National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights Radio Documentary, a chronicle of the first such demonstration in the U.S. capital in 1979, and the AudioFile 2002 Year in Review, a look back at the year's queer music highlights.
This Way Out and its 501(c)3 nonprofit parent Overnight Productions, Inc., are no strangers to the financial edge. Its reach, production quality, and longevity make it seem like it must be a big-budget project, but in reality it has always been a very lean, largely volunteer-driven just like my own Gaywaves show.
operation
Even at that level, raising enough money to stay on the air has never been an easy task, and the show has been saved from pulling the plug by a last-minute miracle more than once. One such miracle earlier this year was the award of a $5,000 grant from the Arcus Foundation, a Michigan family foundation devoted to the promotion of diversity and tolerance with a special emphasis on LGBT visibility.
To show your support, send checks to Overnight Productions, Inc. at P.O. Box 38327, Los Angeles, Calif. 90038. Tax-deductible donations and requests for the thank you gifts can also be made online at www.thiswayout.org.
For more information, call This Way Out at 818-986-4106, write to the address above or e-mail TWORadio@aol.com. New satellite channel announced
As This Way Out struggles to stay on the air, the Sirius satellite radio network announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on January 8 that it plans to launch the first 24-hour gay radio channel.
Mindy Kramer, a spokesperson for Sirius, told the Washington Blade that her company plans to launch the new gay radio channel in about 90 days and said, "We're about granting programs people can't get anywhere else."
Sirius, which uses three satellites to broadcast 100 streams of music, sports, news and entertainment, is available for for a subscription rate of $12.95 a month.
The company also currently makes its 60 music streams available on its web site, www.siriusradio.com.
Kramer noted that the proposed gay channel, which has not been named yet, will most likely include advertisements.
So far, John McMullen, the founder of the defunct Internet GayBC Radio Network, has been hired to work on the new gay channel.
Vidal biopic comes to PBS in June
The life story of gay author, playwright and historian Gore Vidal will be told in the documentary The Education of Gore Vidal, to be aired next June on an upcoming episode of the PBS series American Masters.
Bianca meets someone new
Soap fans who have longed for a love match between All My Children's Bianca (Eden Riegel) were disappointed when, on the January 6 episode, Maggie told Bianca that although she loved her, she was only into guys.
Bianca, who was beginning to fall in love with the seemingly adoring Maggie, forced the issue when she asked Maggie to clarify the feelings she had for her.
Although Bianca is perennially falling in love with straight women, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, has nominated her All My Children storyline for its third successive award in the Daily Drama category.
7
"This roller coaster of emotions makes viewers tune in to Bianca's storyline and thus learn, through All My Children, about the lives of young lesbians," said GLAAD's John Sonego. "Bianca's relationship with Maggie has been a dramatic part of her life— and a realistic one. Many young, newly out lesbians fall for a close friend, only to discover the friend is straight."
All is not lost for Bianca however. A few days after Maggie said she was straight, Bianca met another woman at the college lesbian and gay alliance she had just joined. The woman asked Bianca if she was going to a dance the club was holding and, when Bianca said she was, told Bianca she was saving a spot on her dance card for her.
Sonego also said that GLAAD would like to see Bianca in a romantic relationship but, "We hope that she does not live ‘happily ever after' with her life partner. The moment she is content is the moment viewers stop caring about her. Unrequited love and heartbreak are what keeps viewers tuning in-and learning."
Although I too, was disappointed the bud-
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ding romance never came to fruition, the fact that there is a lesbian and gay alliance may mean we get to see more lesbian and gay people in Pine Valley and perhaps, if the producers are bold enough, a whole lesbigay subculture and multiple lesbigay romances in future episodes.
Teen suicide on new medical series
Three CBS series, The District, Presidio Med and Becker, will feature AIDS storylines on upcoming episodes.
Presidio Med is a medical drama set in San Francisco, but it has no recurring LGBT characters. It did have a sensitive and tragic story of a 15 year-old-boy who was hospitalized after a suspected suicide attempt. The attempt came after he came out to his parents, and they refused to believe him.
Although the doctors tried to get the parents to believe their son, the mother's continued denial and rejection led her son to hang himself in a hospital rest room. It was only after the tragic death of her son that the mother realized the loss she suffered because she refused to believe he was really gay.
'Oh, my God, it's Meryl Streep'
Kissing another woman for her role in The Hours was not a problem for Allison Janney. What challenged her was the person playing her lover.
"The whole time I'm thinking, 'Oh my God, I'm in bed with Meryl Streep. Oh my God, I'm about to kiss Meryl Streep!' Janney told Entertainment Weekly.
""
Fred Grandy meets Barney Frank
Gay actor Nathan Lane, the Tony Awardwinning Broadway star of The Producers, will play an openly gay U.S. representative in the midseason replacement show Charlie Lawrence, set to air in March.
"I thought it was an interesting venue to place a gay character into," Lane said. “I
loved the idea that he was a former actor somewhere along the lines of a Fred Grandy and Barney Frank."
Lane insists on being very involved with all aspects of his new show where he's listed as both a writer and an executive producer, reports Bill Brioux of the Toronto Sun. Lane demanded a copy of a script for Charlie Lawrence before he met with series creator Jeffrey Richman (Wings, Frasier), saying, “I just couldn't meet somebody and say, 'Gee, we hit it off over lunch. Here's my life and let's hope it works out.'
""
Lane's character will date other men.
"I think Will & Grace opened a door where an openly gay character could be just received into the living rooms of America and everybody will laugh," Richman said. "This guy is gay, he's a congressman, he's a former actor, he's a lot of stuff." ✓
John Graves is the producer and host of Gaywaves, a lesbian, gay bisexual and transgender public affairs show on Cleveland's WRUW 91.1 FM Fridays at 7:30 pm, and at www.wruw.org. See what's coming on TV in the Couch Potato Report, under "Entertainment" at www.lgcsc.org. Dave Haskell, Jim McGrattan and Kim Jones also contribute to this column.
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