Subject: #1/TINSELTOWN IS BURNING!
From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 5 Mar 1995 21:30:18 -0500

PLEASE FEEL FREE TO PASS THIS ALONG THROUGH CYBERSPACE, THE WORLD WIDE WEB,
ETC.
_________________________________________

CONDITIONS FOR PUBLICATION and/or RE-DISTRIBUTION (modified 1/29/95).

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Thank you very much.

Sincerely,

Nicholas Snow
The Tinseltown Queer

COLUMN #1 - For Publication the first week of January, 1995
Copyright 1994 by Nicholas Snow - All Rights Reserved

Nicholas Snow is...
TINSELTOWN'S QUEER!

     "Guess what, my dear, I'm The Tinseltown Queer, and Hollywood will never
be the same.  Yes, I'm The Tinseltown Queer, but have no fear, I don't even
want to name your name, but join with me, we shall proclaim, that gay or
straight, we're all alike.  Hetero, bi, fag, or dyke!  What's the secret all
about?  It's time to all come out!  This industry transcends the globe.  So
the truth we must disrobe.  Join with me, we shall unite, and turn the
darkness into light.  We'll turn the darkness into light."

  "Hello, and welcome to 'Tinseltown's Queer!', because it is, and so am I,
how about you?"  I'm Nicholas Snow, The Tinseltown Queer, and I open my
television show with the preceding statement, and the above theme song.  I
wasn't always The Tinseltown Queer.  I used to be a conservative, Republican,
teenager in a small, Arizona town, but there we're two mitigating factors
that changed all that:  1) I was a young fag (or at least everyone told me
so) and 2) I had dreams of making it in Hollywood.  So here I am now, making
it my business to "examine and strengthen the relationship between the
entertainment industry and the Queer Civil Rights Movement," which is the
purpose of my television show, this column, and my other pursuits in
entertainment and media activism.
 You'll notice in my theme song that I use the word "disrobe."  When I wrote
those lyrics, I thought I was using "disrobe" as a metaphor, but I actually
ended up taking off all of my clothes on television, displaying my penis to a
reach of several hundred thousand households.  Believe it or not, I didn't do
this for ratings.  I did it to draw attention to my "Open Letter to Hollywood
and The World," which received little or no attention when I first sent it
out.  In my "Open Letter", I try to help people see their relationship to
homophobia, and I explain why I believe the entertainment industry, for the
most part, promotes homophobia.  So, as "a performance art metaphor calling
upon the entertainment industry to remove its layers of make-believe, and
express its naked truth," I took off all of my clothes while reciting my
letter.
 Due to technological (not physiological) short-comings, I cannot present my
penis to you in this column, but I can, in putting forth my activist
philosophy, set the tone for upcoming columns by presenting to you my Open
Letter (I guess you'll have to wait for the CD ROM version if you want to see
my penis):

TINSELTOWN IS BURNING
An Open Letter to Hollywood and The World

      TINSELTOWN IS BURNING, not to mention flaming, and the fires of
ignorance, prejudice and bigotry are ravaging our land, killing many, and
endangering us all.  Some of us are doing everything we can to fight the
fire.  Some of us are oblivious to the flames, safe and secure behind
fireproof walls in protected communities.  Some of us, aware of the fire,
have chosen to fuel it with silence, having encased ourselves in closets of
tempered glass.
     The raging fire is homophobia, burning out of control, resulting in very
real death and destruction.  Case-in-point: The rapid increase of anti-gay
violence, including the recent, multiple Mississippi murders, the ongoing
harassment of the lesbians of Camp Sister Spirit, the ravages of the AIDS
epidemic (promoted by years of Right Wing oppression and government neglect),
and the increasing assault on everyone's civil liberties by The Radical
Right.  The winds of hatred are turning the landscape of humanity into a
wasteland.
     While we may portray ourselves as victims in this firestorm (and indeed,
sometimes we are), we are not powerless.  WE HAVE CHOICES.  We do not have to
wait to be burned by increasing legions of Right Wing Arson Brigades, intent
on reducing us to ashes with fire and brimstone.  We can fight.  And if we
are already fighting, we can fight harder, together, with greater
organization.
     Think of yourself as someone in an old-fashioned fire-fighting line,
where community members have gathered together to pass buckets of water from
the well to the inferno.  If you choose to step aside from the line, even for
very good reasons, the water stops flowing until someone takes your place.
 If someone doesn't take your place, the fire rages out of control, while at
the same time, arsonists, in the name of God, are burning down the next
block.
     In a very real sense, we each have the ability to carry buckets of
knowledge to infernos of ignorance by simply choosing to express the truth of
our lives to the people whom we influence.  Granted, we are not all expert
firefighters.  I may simply be a good team leader.  You may simply have an
empty container.  But your parents have a faucet.  Your next door neighbor
has a hose.  Your roommate is trained in first aid.  The community college
down the street teaches a course in fire safety.  People living in the houses
in the hills can help finance the building of fire stations, and WE CAN ALL
BE ON ARSON WATCH.
     Yes, Tinseltown IS burning, because in Hollywood, perhaps 8 out of 10
people know that homophobia is wrong, yet so few, SO FEW, seek to FULLY
express this truth to the people whom they influence.  This industry, which
so easily commands the global spotlight, is potentially the greatest
firefighting force on the planet.  Yet, by virtue of our silence--the
withholding of our true Selves, out of fear, or for the sake of market share,
Q-ratings, and big box office--we are, in fact, the greatest proponents of
this firestorm.  And WHILE RED RIBBONS MAY CALL ATTENTION TO THE RAGING
INFERNO THAT IS AIDS, OUR CHOSEN SILENCE SERVES ONLY TO FUEL THE CONTINUED
BURNING OF OUR LIVES.  This must stop.
     We can choose to die of smoke inhalation in seemingly airtight closets,
or we can collectively, as a community, become the most powerful firefighting
force on the planet.  It's time for Hollywood to become the leader in the
global battle against homophobia.  It's time for all of us--lesbian, gay,
bisexual, heterosexual, and asexual alike--to stand up for truth, and defeat
the flames of ignorance that threaten our very existence.
 Take your next step.  Make every day National Coming Out Day.  And as
Madonna says, "Express yourself!"  Remember, only we can prevent forest
fires, and IF WE'RE NOT FIGHTING THEM, WE'RE ALLOWING THEM TO BURN.
 Welcome to my column:  an ongoing look at Tinseltown from a Queer
perspective.  Be sure to read next week, and I'll let you know what Melissa
Etheridge told me at the Playboy Mansion (and I'll tell you about my Roseanne
sighting), and exactly why I have the gall to use the word "Queer" so
positively.  With Love, TQ