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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 1, 1987)
The Straight Stuff Ron Jr. ’s Bananarama; eek a condom at the Oregonian; Ed Koch and Nessie dive for cover; would you buy a used car from a homophobe?; so what s news about a gay march?; and more. 've shopped at Powell’s for years, hut it was never my intention to become an author. Now, thanks to Powell’s, my husband is driving me to it. It started when Powell’s put a spe cial garden and cookbook store in Pastaworks, right on S.E. 37th and Haw thorne. My husband— who can barely iden tify grass— discovers the garden book section. "Oh honey,” he says, "just a little plot for vegetables.” But of tomatoes, lettuce, beans and zucchini, guess which survived. Right, zucchini. So he specializes in it. Every \ zucchini is like a child to < him. As a result, I now specialize in zucchini recipes. That’s the book I’m writing. “ 1000 uses for Zucchini.” I fully expert Powell’s to have it in stock next spring. I Powell’s Bookstores— more new and used books than any other bookstore west of the Mississippi. B O O K S O R E S T DOW NTOW N 10th and W Burnudr* M o n Sat 9-11, Sun. 9-9 BEAVERTON Gawadc Plaza* Daily 9 9 T E C H N IC A L B O O K S I Ith and N.W. Couch* Mon.-Sat. 9-9, Sun. 10-7 TRAVEL STO RE Pioncrf Courthouar Square M o n Sat. 9-9, Sun. 11-6 BO O KS FO R C O O K S J7 J9 S.E.Hawthotnr M o n Sat 9-7, Sun. 11-Î C ALEN DA R STORE IJoyd Center* Mon.-Fri. 10-9, Sat. 10-6, Sun 12-5 • F r« Parking FALL AUTHORS SERIES Barbara Weiser, co-editor ot Rivers Running Free Thursday, November 5 7pm slide show Bobbie Hasselbring The Medical Self Care Book of Women's Health Friday, November 6 5 -7pm Rosemary Dunn-Dalton Oregon author Andrea Carlisle Lesbian Psychologies River Flouse Stories Saturday, November 14 Noon-2 pm Friday, November 27 5-7pm A F e m in is t B o o k sto r e & M ore 1 4 3 1 N .E . B r o a d w a y P o r tla n d , O R 9 7 2 3 2 (5 0 3 ) 2 K 4 -1 1 1 0 Just O m • 6 • November. 1987 Mon.-Sat. 11-7 Sunday 12-5 B Y W . C . M c R A E umors o f New York Mayor Ed Koch’s homosexuality have surfaced in the media with about the same frequency as reports of the Loch Ness Monster surfacing in the dark and choppy waters of Scotland. This last month, in fact, at the same time as amateur scientists con spired to lure Nessie out of its watery closet, professional journalists were attempting edito rially to induce Koch out of his G rade Mansion armoire. Talk about dark and choppy waters! Former Miss America and New York Cultural Commis sioner (and close Koch friend) Bess Myerson was indicted on bribery charges. However, appearing heterosexual has never before been so fraught with coverage. The usu ally dour New York Times, when reporting M yerson’s indictment on the front page, ac knowledged rumors that Koch is gay, and that Myerson received her job by posing as his girlfriend. And just when Koch might have thought it was safe to go back in the water, last month the LA Weekly of Los Angeles significantly upped the “ is he, isn’t he” ante with the publication of a story that names three sources within the New York gay community willing to vow that the Mayor is gay. The story also alleges (this is New York, remember) that the man involved with the mayor later received lucrative city contracts. Why is this anyone’s — besides a grand jury's — business? The LA Weekly , and now the Village Voice, claim that coverage of Koch’s sex life is justified because Koch allegedly did not allow his administration to deal effectively against the AIDS health crisis because he was afraid to be politically associated with a “ gay m an's disease.” However, for Koch, it is not too late for vindication on the issue. The New York Times revealed late last month that revised figures for New York City show that AIDS is, and has been, more prevalent amongst straight IV drug users (53 percent of those already dead) than gay men (38 percent). It’s — suddenly — not too late to start throw ing money at the problem. R Arizona dreamin’ d Koch isn't the only regional politician receiving national press coverage. No one has yet accused Arizona governor Evan Mecham of being gay, though such an allega tion might actually boost support in key con stituencies Former-Pontiac-dealer-then- govem or Mecham first drew media attention when he rescinded the state's Martin Luther King holiday (political pressure later forced Mecham to re-schedule the holiday — on a Sunday) and when he defended calling black children "pickaninnies." Leaving no non- Republican stone unturned. Mecham also angered feminists ( “ working women cause divorce"); gays ( against G od’s laws' ); and the nomi nally intelligent ( “ teachers have no business telling a student the earth is round if the student believes it's flat” ). However, when the wheels of recall began to turn, it was "blame the gays first" time. Recall organizer Ed Buck is gay. and Mecham has used Buck's sexual orientation to discredit the entire recall movement. In late September, Mecham sent out 25,000 letters to conserva tives around the country, asking them either to move to Arizona, or to contribute money to tight the militant liberal and homosexual lobby." Now. anyone who seriously thinks that the E “ homosexual lobby’’ has the strength to unseat a governor has got to be crazy, right? But it seems that a growing number of Arizonans are convinced: the Recall Mecham movement has succeeded in gathering 250,000 signatures, almost 35,000 more than needed to force a recall election next May. The New Republic reports that one of the best selling books in Phoenix is the Official Evan Mecham Joke Book. It is not, as one might suspect, M echam’s collected speeches ("Pick aninny: how Arizonans select their gover nor"). An example: “ Why do cats run around with their tails straight up? To show off their Mecham b u tto n s" What if you gave a party and 600,000 people came? edia coverage of the Gay and Lesbian March on Washington provides a good insight into what the mainstream press sees as newsworthy about gay people. This ranged from almost nothing, to quite a lot. The Washington Post, SF Chronicle and NPR each reported the gathering as an ongoing event, a confluence of energies, and a panoply of personalities — not simply a one-day demonstration. The Chicago Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Baltimore Sun, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and the New York Times each gave front page coverage to the Lesbian and Gay March. O f the dailies that crossed my desk, only the Washing ton Times (run by followers of Reverend Sun Yung Moon), USA Today (as close as print comes to TV), and the Oregonian (published by Fred A. Stickel) failed to carry a front page story on the march. The Washington Times did carry the story (with a great color photo) on page one of its “ M etropolitan" sec tion; USA Today carried the story on its “ second front page" (page 3); the Oregonian carried its Associated Press-generated story on page A8. The M oony's Washington Times, and the crass USA Today is not the company that the Oregonian usually claims to keep, though it is the company in which it finds itself. It needn’t have been so: the Oregonian's Foster Church, who marched with the Oregon contingent in Washington, could easily have been tapped for a story, had the Portland-based Oregonian homophobes been interested. Beyond issues of placement, the stories printed around the country varied greatly in focus. For the New York Daily News, what was N EW S was Jesse Jackson: the Democratic candidate was quoted in the News' second paragraph. The Oregonian got one paragraph into its story on the march before mentioning straight candidate Jackson’s address: now that’s NEWS! The size of the crowd was NEW S to other papers. The SF Examiner and Chronicle and the NY Times carried estimates of crowd size in their headline; the Baltimore Sun and the SF Chronicle emphasized the dispute between official (200,000) and organizers' (500,000) estimates of the crowd’s size (people I trust claim the figure ought to be close to 600,000). For other papers, the NEWS was AIDS. For the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 200,000 people gathering to call for AIDS research was front page news; you had to turn to page 4 to discover that they also wanted guarantees of civil rights for gays and lesbians. The most bizarre approach to the march came from the Washington Times, whose headline read, “ Gay rights marchers revel in Bork’s plight.” Yes. but . . . M