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^^^^^^ WARM GREETINGS FROM ^^^^^^^^^^^^ :-) Ivan Suzman 49/39/36 [log in to unmask] :-) Portland, Maine land of lighthouses 21 deg. F :-) ******************************************************************** I really wonder why, after being personally asked during a 45-minute phone call from WETA-TV, in December, to rearrange my entire life so that I could be filmed by the PBS Lehrer team, specifically, soon after January 5th, (I have been going through HELL , trying to get my PD-ravaged teeth repaired and reformed, to smile the best PWP smile imaginable) that I read only second-hand, on our PD list, but not directly from PBS, that I will NOT be filmed !!! Due to budget constraints.??? What a pile of - - - - ! WAIT JUST A FRIGGIN' MINUTE! What the HELL has happened???? I wonder if my identification as GAY has reduced my struggle to find GAY-friendly, GAY-experienced and GAY-supportive "CG's" to a sad lament, a buried footnote on heterosexist PBS's pages about PWP's. My issues as a PWP who can no longer live alone, who somehow manages to live on, and who is not a slut, who will not take anything in a bar that comes his way, making me just like ANY single PWP, except that, GAY PWP's are out-in=the=cold, gone from the PBS progamming. I am not angry, I am FURIOUS at being excluded by PBS. ME? NOT camera-worthy?? WHO started the TV-ready list, PBS??? No, not Michael J. Fox, no, this GAY PWP did!! I am just as charming, and, although I don't have children, I love children immensely. I am not in Hollywood, but I do perform for 45 minutes to an hour, on STAGE with the Maine Gay Mens' Chorus, whose TUXEDO-ED performances are legendary. I actually managed to do THREE shows in December. I have a become more than a local hero. Phone our President, Mark McDonald, and find out for yourself! After all, you all know how I capably 'bust my ass" to help ALL of us. If a PWP is not strictly heterosexual, and if being "married" or "single" becomes i.d.-worthy, although I, too, am alone,.and need companionship, I begin to feel marginalized and unaccounted for. Perhaps one becomes a partial PWP, a P-PWP, or maybe I should self-i.d. as a Q-PWP (q is for queeny), Partially-presentable under limited circumstances. No matter how one contributes to overcoming PD. I try to be fully acceptable in my own, 'different" way, and know I am both GAY, and PWP "family" like anyone else, even if I am a Matthew Shepard to some, or a GAY pain in the derriere to several. I was made the way I am, by a God and Goddess combined. I am a special PWP, and I have gifts to share with all of you PWP's, whether I feel sensitive, and sultry, like the Shechina, the Jewish Sabbath's god-queen, Or manly, masculine, bearded, and, smelling strongly of Stetson after-shave, feeling horny, like a "real" man, and reminding you of Charlton Heston in the desert heat of Khartoum!! I reflect at times a "special" PWP make-up, combining a bit of Schweppes, a tinted queenishness, lilac leg-warmers, GAY apparel, leather and fantasy and, a rose-colored stud in my left ear. Well the PBS people missed out on a chance to kkkick around this kkknowlegeable PWP's ideas. I can go elsewhere and be welcomed. You kkknow, folks, I am a published SCIENTIST. I have many hard hours of South African and Minnesotan and Maine-iac anatomy labs and editorial jobs behind me. I really feel so excluded by the wealthy white male straight ego-tripping power structure that would like to make me a queer. A faggot. I have been spat upon by a C.N.A. My pencilled sketch of an elm tree at sunset in November was defaced by crude caricatures of copulating stick-figures. My GAY home was burned by arson in 1996. My kitty, Celie, was murderd in that fire. I am nonetheless, truly thrilled that my PWP-sistah, Hilary Blue, a thoughtful, caring and honest friend, who as a Jewess, understands what being a MINORITY is all about, was filmed today!! Hilary has made a brilliant,brave and unforgettable entrance, for all PWP's, into the world of publicity, and hopefully, a CURE for PD, a world that our Californian friend, Barb Malllut, and I have also pierced. But where does PBS leave me? Life-line was installed today in my house. A huge speaker with buttons was hooked up this morning at 11 AM !!! I have visions of being taken to an early grave just like Matthew Shepard in Wyoming. because if a PWP is a GAY man, you are more of a Queer than a worthwhile Breeder. One of the boys at my favorite bar put it very bluntly when he said "Ivan, darlin', there will always be queers and there will always be niggahs" So, please people of the List, WAKE UP! and remember that a very low-income GAY List Member who needs GAY-friendly and GAY-knowlegeable caregivers, is sitting quietly in an Arctic icescape, trying not to be another dreadful GAY statistic. My struggle to find safe caregivers, has been relegated to non-existence, by a PBS mentality that has decide that I supposedly do not matter. Meanwhile the real issues about being single, whether widowed, divorced, gay, bi, lesbian or whatever, issues that unite EVERY PWP who is ALONE , were left aside by a homophobic PBS. And while PBS glossed over my GAY-ness, and is frightened to deal with human diversity as it REALLY is, in ALL lof its wonderful forms, I still have no nighttime caregiver, and, tomorrow I am expecting to be HOSPITALIZED. Ivan Mfowethu Suzman (Q-PWP/49/39/36)