From: Date: Sun, 5 Mar 1995 21:30:18 -0500 Subject: #1/TINSELTOWN IS BURNING! 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). This is a FREE, weekly, syndicated column, distributed electronically via the internet, available to any interested print publication or on-line user. Although this material is copyrighted by the author, you are hereby granted permission to print (only in newspapers or magazines--no books) and distribute (electronically) this column on a one-time-per-column basis. EDITORS/PUBLISHERS: Please feel free to edit the column for length or timeliness, as it may simply be too long for your particular publication, or perhaps outdated, as some of the subscribing publications are monthly, or bi-weekly, as opposed to weekly. IF YOU PRINT OR REDISTRIBUTE THIS COLUMN IN ANY WAY, YOU MUST LEAVE THE FINAL PROMOTIONAL PARAGRAPH(s) INTACT (That's why this column is free), and you must send two copies of each issue which contains the column to Nicholas Snow, The Tinseltown Queer, 7985 Santa Monica Blvd., Suite 450, West Hollywood, CA 90046. IF YOU WANT A BLACK & WHITE HEADSHOT TO ACCOMPANY THE COLUMN, PLEASE EMAIL YOUR REQUEST AND MAILING ADDRESS TO Ttownqueer@aol.com. (On online photo will be forthcoming in a few weeks, for electronic recipients). The column is distributed anytime between Sunday a.m. and Monday p.m., Pacific Standard Time. If you have received this column as the result of being on a list or newsgroup and wish to receive it directly, please notify me at Ttownqueer@aol.com. 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