This Way Out

I would like to think that most of Randy's humor is meant in a real playful sense. Our music really is for the world, for everyone, but women stumbled on it and picked it up like a stone that had been there, beside the road forever, and they picked it up and held it and said, oh, this is pretty, we know what to do with this. Somebody says they were in a barbershop and heard the barbershop talk in South Austin saying, well, there's a queer running for the legislature, isn't that just outrageous? And as they talk, by the end of the conversation, I'm saying that, you know, he is the most qualified one running. Welcome to this way out, the International lesbian and gay radio magazine. I'm Lucia Chappelle. And I'm Greg Gordon. Act up, faces jeopardy for penetrating home's smoke screen. Midwestern DJs move, increases California air pollution. And a maxi move from the lobby to the legislature. All that and more, because you've discovered this way out.

I'm Mark Sakumano, and I'm Cindy Friedman with NewsRap, a summary of some of the news in or affecting the lesbian and gay community for the week ending March 9, 1991. The International boycott of Philip Morris, maker of Marlboro cigarettes and Miller Beer, has led to investigation of four gay and lesbian organizations by the United States Federal Elections Commission. The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, act up, called for the boycott because of Philip Morris' large contributions to the successful re -election campaign of homophobic Senator Jesse Helms. Trouble began in August when the conservative campaign fund filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission, FVC, charging four organizations with a flagrant and cynical attempt to violate the Federal Elections Campaign Act. The complaint was based on an article in The Washington Blade,

the capital city's gay newspaper, which led the fund to complain that the organization's actions extended beyond acts of protest to the defeat of Senator Jesse Helms for re -election. Last month, the FVC dropped its investigation of two individual ACTUP members, but at the same time stated it had reason to believe that there were election law violations by ACTUP DC, ACTUP San Francisco, the Dallas Gay Alliance, and the Terrent County Gay Alliance. ACTUP DC is being required to provide detailed information regarding its boycott activities and is thought by the FVC to have spent at least $500 for the purpose of influencing the North Carolina Senate election. Such actions are reserved for organizations legally registered as political action committees. Apparently undeterred, ACTUP San Francisco is adding RJ Reynolds to its boycott list for having

contributed $750 ,000 to the Helms campaign. The group is asking supporters not to purchase Reynolds products, including camel and Winston cigarettes and Nabisco -Baked Goods. A possible vaccine against HIV has, for the first time, been injected into a human subject in the U .S. And, if you're buying aerosolized pentamidine to ward off new assistous pneumonia, you are spending far too much money. Mary Van Clay has the details. A San Francisco healthcare worker has become the first American to get a new experimental vaccine against HIV. Deborah Gumbly, who works at San Francisco General, has taken the first of three injections she'll receive over the next 10 weeks. The shots contain a synthetic copy of P -17, a protein in the core of the virus which causes AIDS. Because the copy is synthetic and contains no portion of actual HIV, the vaccination cannot transmit the virus. The latest issue of the Lancet, the prestigious British Medical Journal, contains a study that says an inexpensive pill taken

three times a week is very effective in preventing new assistous pneumonia, one of the leading killers of people with AIDS. The two Los Angeles physicians who wrote the article say they're trying to wake everyone up to what some physicians and patients have known for years. The drugs, bactram and ceptra are cheaper, more effective, and produce fewer side effects than the highly touted aerosolized pentamidine which has been officially considered the best medicine for preventing the deadly pneumonia. In San Francisco, I'm Mary Van Clay. Eleven members of a lesbian and gay action group called Out felt the Washington D .C. Office of AIDS Activities, or OAA, was failing to do its job. So last month, they walked in and took it over. The OAA has been without a director since its acting director resigned in December. The Out protesters entered the director's office and proclaimed themselves temporary directors, inviting the staff to a briefing. Most staff members closed themselves in their own

offices, although a few stood outside the door to listen. Out protesters hung signs reading new and improved office of AIDS activities and distributed a mock memorandum on simulated city stationary proposing changes for the office. Demands included more emphasis on education and patient services and improved planning. A separate memo to Mayor Sharon Pratt Dixon expressed outrage that OAA had not yet issued requests for proposals for the more than one and a half million dollars in emergency funds Congress allocated to the city for people with AIDS. Police arrested seven of the protesters while the other four left voluntarily. Quarantine of people testing positive for HIV in Cuba has required expansion from one so -called C -ditorium to three. According to the gay magazines, gay pied and Caribbean heat, inmates of the original C -ditorium near Havana are allowed to visit families once a week with a social worker escorting them

to ensure their celibacy. While those incarcerated in the two newer C -ditoria in the country's interior are let out only a few times a year. Public demonstration of homosexuality still carries criminal penalties in Cuba. Briefly in other news from around the world, amendments to Britain's clause 25 have pleased some gay activists but failed to satisfy others. The amendments decriminalized homosexual acts between merchant C -men, procurement, and living on the earnings of male prostitution. Peter Tatchel of Outrage said the revised clause 25 would still leave almost 2 ,000 men each year at risk of prison for consensual male to male sex acts. Also in Britain, London's pink paper reports that more than 100 lesbian and gay police officers from forces across the country have organized the lesbian and gay police association. The association's goals are to combat homophobia and law enforcement to improve

police relations with the gay and lesbian community and to offer supported networking for members. The Swedish newspaper, Komout, reports that Czechoslovakia's largest gay organization, Ganymedes, has grown to 400 members in the year since its founding with chapters in Koseych, Trenchen, and Priavvidza. Czech television recently aired an hour documentary on gay lifestyle and a short film for Bidden Love is showing in theaters across the country. In Minneapolis, Minnesota, a lesbian couple, and a gay couple became the first and second pair to register as domestic partners there on February 19th. And on March 1st, East Lansing, Michigan began offering benefits including spousal sick and bereavement leave and health and dental insurance benefits to those city employees who register as domestic partners. We previously reported that the Dallas Gay Alliance Credit Union had become the

second gay and lesbian organization to issue a major credit card following the Visa and MasterCards issued by Seattle Washington's Pride Foundation. The Dallas Gay Alliance Credit Union has informed us that they are the first gay or lesbian identified organization to actually receive a license from MasterCard. And contrary to our earlier report, the Dallas Gay Alliance Credit Union does benefit financially from the card. And finally, Andre Kudrescu, a regular liberal commentator for U .S. National Public Radio's popular All Things Considered, recently revealed a past sexual relationship with a man. Kudrescu, whose now a married father of two, told the gay magazine The Advocate that, when the 70s gay scene appeared in San Francisco as a heterosexual, he felt sexually obsolete. That's News Wrap for the Weekending March 9th, 1991,

compiled from publications and broadcasts throughout the world and written by Cindy Friedman. Remember, an informed community is a strong community. Find out what's happening in your area by monitoring your local gay and lesbian media. For this way out, I'm Cindy Friedman. And I'm Mark Sakomano. I'm Dave Buehl for this way out. Randy Miller is a disc jockey, well known to the Kansas City lesbian and gay community. He hosted a morning show here on radio station KBEQ until late last year. One of Miller's recurring on -air characters, the swishy, man chasing less manly, angered the community and spurred it to action. Prompting at least one advertiser, St. Louis -based Streetside Records, the Pulitzer ads from Miller's show. In October 1989, Miller was invited to appear on the 10th voice, Kansas City's gay and lesbian radio program, but he declined citing illness as the reason. KBEQ's program manager, Kevin Kenney, however, was there to defend Miller's

humor. It's meant in a lighthearted sense. It's not meant maliciously. And I would like to think that most of Randy's humor is meant in a real playful sense. Miller, it was later learned, had managed to sneak his way on the air that night during the show's Collins segment. My comment is about the less manly character. It seems to me that less is stereotyped of the worst kind of a gay person, a person who is just always on the loose, always working to pick up men. And that's certainly not true. Now my question is, Mr. Kenney, what are you wearing? Because you sound well. You sound like you know less. Last November, Randy Miller left Kansas City for San Diego. And on January 2nd, he did a homophobic routine during sports radio station X -T -R -A -A -M's morning show. He began by describing ads from the gay and lesbian community

yellow pages, then called advertisers to harass them on the air. Three colors were allowed to tell anti -gay jokes, and listers were invited to call in and nominate people they would quote, most like to beat the hell out of, in 1991. San Diego's proximity to Los Angeles has brought Randy Miller within earshot of the Los Angeles chapter of the gay and lesbian alliance against defamation, or GLAD, which has begun monitoring sports radio. GLAD has appealed to readers of its media watch column to contact X -T -R -A with their complaints. In Kansas City, this is Dave Buehl for this way out. For the past four years, Glenn Maxi has been the executive

director and chief lobbyist for the lesbian gay rights lobby of Texas. On March 2nd, he became the first openly gay elected official in the state of Texas. Maxi won a seat in the Texas state legislature representing the 51st district, which includes the state capital in Austin. Bill Travis and Alonzo Duraldi spoke with Maxi the day after his impressive political victory. The community here is pretty electric today, throughout the night actually. We had a convincing win. We won 54 % of the vote. We did exceedingly well throughout the community. From Mendes' outturning of volunteers yesterday, we had two to three hundred people on the street, block walking and phoning and standing on street corners, waving signs. Central Austin precincts, we win by 77 % of the vote. On the other end of the political spectrum, very conservative rule boxes in far south Travis County, we won with a two to one vote. This district is about 40 % Hispanic.

We were running against Hispanic candidate and even in Hispanic community, we got about 25 to 30 % of the vote. So it was a very nice victory. Has Mark Weaver had a coronary yet? Well, we haven't heard from Mark this morning. He was on cable access TV this week saying a dark cloud was coming over Austin. For the people out there listening who don't know who Mark Weaver is, Mark Weaver is that a fundamentalist minister there that is very homophobic, very anti -gay. He gave me a wonderful compliment. We have to stop Glenn Maxi because he's a real smart cookie. He has an agenda. And of course, we put out a fly immediately in the gay community, both to direct mail and leave it in the bars the night before the election saying that Mark Weaver doesn't want Glenn Maxi in the state capital and it was a pretty effective tool. So once again, the fundamentalists sometimes are our best friends and these kinds of activities. The community here is very political. We raised the money for this race almost exclusively from our community. Many people thought that the victory was making

the race. I had literally hundreds of people saying, I'm so glad you're doing this. It's so nice to see somebody who says in every campaign speech, I am an open -to -gay person and I'm running for the state legislature. But many people felt, in my opinion, that it was not something that was going to be successful. And the empowerment of the community last night as we made the traditional bar tour was extremely electric about what's happened here. And as the excitement sort of wears off today, I know that we also have a tremendous challenge because I'm going to have to be the kind of state representative that senior citizens and people concerned about public education and healthcare. They look at us and say, you know, there's the guy who is concerned about us and he happens to be gay, as opposed to that was the gay representative.

I intend to represent this district well and at the same time make sure that gay men and lesbians across Texas have access to the system, to the legislature, that there's someone at the front or the back mic of the House of Representatives speaking on behalf of our issues. Did homosexual orientation come up at all during the campaign? It was an amazing transformation. Other than the mark we were kind of things, it was not a negative. Yesterday we had senior citizens, the mayor of Creedmore, Texas, a small rural community, very conservative Democrats, all walking and phoning. Somebody said they were in a barbershop and heard the barbershop talk in South Austin saying, well, there's a queer running for the legislature, isn't that just outrageous? And as they talk by the end of the conversation, I'm saying that, you know, he is the most qualified one running and, you know, I guess he'll do a good job.

So those barriers began falling and we had, at the beginning of this campaign, people who say, well, I know that you're qualified, but I'm not sure that I can talk to my neighbors about supporting a homosexual. By the end of this campaign, that issue had become secondary. It was Glen Maxie, the most effective on health care and public education, environmental issues. He knows how to work the legislature. He'll be a good representative for us. And he happens to be gay. And that's where we wanted to be. And I think it said a lot about the kinds of volunteers that worked in this campaign and had to do that door -to -door person -to -person breaking down that barrier. So we're very proud of what happened here in Austin, Texas. Glen Maxie, the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in the state of Texas. Bill Travis and Alonzo Duralde reporting from Dallas for this way out. We are the champions.

We are the champions. We are the champions. We are the champions. We are the champions. We are the champions. We are the champions. We are the champions. We are the champions. We are the champions. We are the champions. We are the champions. We are the champions. We are the champions. We are the champions. We are the champions. We are the champions. We are the champions. We are the champions. We are the champions. We are the champions. We are the champions. We are the champions. We are the champions. We are the champions. We are the champions. We are the champions. We are the champions. We are the champions. We are the champions. We are the champions. We are the champions. We are the champions. We are the champions. We are the champions. We are the champions. We are the champions. We are the champions. We are the champions. We are the champions. We are the champions. We are the champions. We are the champions. We are the champions. You're listening to this way out, the International Lesbian and Gay Radio Magazine. Open up your life to the living. Our things come,

spilling in on you. And you're flowing like a river, the change around the change. You got to spill some over, spill some over, spill some over, over all. Filling up and spilling over, Returning and listening what I've bought. Feeling up and spilling over, over all. Feeling up and spilling over. It's endless what I've bought. Feeling up and spilling over, over all. Like the rain, falling on the ground. Like the

rain, falling all around. For this way out in Los Angeles, this is Lisa Ann Colton. You were listening to Chris Williamson, whose name is synonymous with women's music, performing her trademark song Waterfall, which was originally recorded on the Changer and Changed Album. On a recent concert tour of Australia, she stopped to speak about her beginnings in women's music, Olivia Records, and the Changer and the Changed Album with Evelyn Robinson of Melbourne. I made my first record when I was 16. I'm 43 now. I've been doing it a long, long time. I was going to be an English teacher, actually. And then I set out to California in 1969 just to see what I could do, to see what I could see, what was over the hill. I just decided to move there, because I wanted to try to make my way in music, because it was more exciting to me

and made my way through folk clubs, singing it three in the morning to nobody, hoping to get jobs. And I did. And I got, you know, just began to build a following and had a major album out on Ampex Records, 1970 -71. And made Christian heard that in Washington. It was in one of those out bins. And she was hot on the trail of something she had made up called Women's Music. And I didn't know what that was. When she came up to me in Washington and said, what do you think about women's music? I said, I don't know what it is. And she proceeded to try to tell me what she thought it might be. She was a musicologist and really thought that when women made music, much as when they make many other things, it's remarkably different. But we needed more time and history to decide what those differences were about women and music. And now I think 15 years later, certainly with Olivia, we maybe know a little bit more. I'm still not sure that what I do is women's music. It's

my music. But on the other hand, if you ask me to describe what it is and people do, I don't know what to call it. Like myself, it does not fit easily into any category. But there's great freedom in that to not fit easily. And so my music really is for the world for everyone. But women knew what to do with it. And so I think it's no mistake that women stumbled on it, picked it up like a stone that had been there beside the road forever. And they picked it up and held it and said, oh, this is pretty. We know what to do with this. And they proceeded to call it Women's Music and come to my shows. We were sitting around in a little station, just like this, having a panel discussion about women and music. So I told them everything I knew. And I said, if you're really interested, I'm sure I think I said you guys. If you guys are so interested, I said to these women, maybe you should start a women's record company. And they did. I left town.

I went on my merry way. And then I'd later recorded for them the changer and the change. It keeps us alive, literally and figuratively. Our little company. It's just an amazing album, how it sells. And people come up and say, I'm on my tenth copy or in the divorce, you know, this is what we fought over. So it makes you feel treasured and special and precious. And it is that. And this year is the 15th anniversary of that particular album. And so I'm doing a lot of the material from that specific album. Though I've got many albums since. But within that is still the essence. If you stripped everything away, I think you would still hear an unchangeable item, which is whatever Chris Williamson music is, whatever that. And for me, it seems to be in the sound of my voice. No matter what I sing, there's a sound that you know that's my voice, that's nobody else's. And that's the voice they gave me

when I came into this world. And my job is just to dress it variously and try it out into the world. The music you are hearing is Sweet Woman by Chris Williamson and is on her best -selling album, Changer in the Change. For this way out, this has been Lisa Ann Colton. Then inside my door, I think I'm the same. Singing to me, then soft words take me to your seat. Letting me know, taking me in, you let it all go.

Let it all go. All warmth surrounding me, this night is staring, staring at me. All warmth surrounding me, just won't let me, just won't let me be, a little message of time. I hold you and you, be my sweet woman. All warmth surrounding me, I hold you and you, be my sweet woman. I hold you and you, be my sweet woman. I hold you and you, be my sweet woman.

I hold you and you, Thanks for choosing this way out, the International Lesbian and Gay Radio Magazine. This week, Cindy Friedman, Mark Sacamano, Bill Travis and Alonzo Duraldi, Mary Van Clay, Dave Buol and Lisa Ann Colton contributed program material. Thanks also to Gary Taylor, Mindy Ron, Mike Alcala and Christopher David Trenton. Queen and Chris Williamson performed some of the music you heard, and Kim Wilson composed and performed our theme music. This way out is brought to you by a staff of community volunteers and is sustained by financial support from the community. Audio cassettes of our programs are available by mail, individually or by subscription. Write to us for more information. We'd also like to hear from you with any comments, suggestions, or questions you might have, or just to let us

know you're listening. Write to this way out, post office box 38327, Los Angeles, California 90038. This way out is produced by Greg Gordon, and Lucia Chappelle, and we thank you for listening on W -A -I -F Cincinnati, K -G -N -U Boulder, and CFU -V Victoria, among others, and for supporting your local community radio station. Stay tuned.