(We need to match or exceed the amount raised during last year's holiday season to demonstrate to our major foundation funder that there's enough listener support to justify their renewed grant to "This Way Out" in 2012. Please include a donation to "This Way Out" on your holiday gift list -- whatever you can afford will help us reach our goal!)
(1) We've chatted in 2011 with:
- lesbian-feminist humorist Kate Clinton
- the U.S. National Center for Transgender Equality's Mara Keisling
- "Tales of the City" writer Armistead Maupin
- MBE-award-winning British lesbian activist Clare Dimyon
- leading Moscow-based Russian gay activist Nikolai Alekseev
- revered U.S. lesbian writer Jane Anderson
- trailblazing Canadian lesbian singer/songwriter k.d. lang
- "Pomo Afro Homos" Thandiwe Thomas Deshazor, Brian Freeman, Dazié Rustin Grego and Rashad Pridgen
- America's premiere "Gender Outlaw" Kate Bornstein
- British lesbian writer Sarah Waters ("Tipping the Velvet")
- "It Gets Better" co-creator and sex advice columnist Dan Savage
- Comic actor Leslie Jordan ("Will & Grace", "Sordid Lives")
- trans-actress/enterainer Alexandra Billings
- everyone's favorite "Nellie" Alison Arngrim
- Director David Chalmers of the new British international LGBT rights group Kaleidoscope and Nigerian expatriate/activist Bisi Alimi
- irreverent columnist/author Michael Musto
- performer Steven Fales ("Confessions Of A Mormon Boy")
- Canadian comedian Deanne Smith
- transgender teen singer/songwriter Ryan Cassata
- International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission Executive Director Cary Alan Johnson
- Kenyan gay activist/refugee Lourence Misedah
(2) With reports from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, each week's "This Way Out" includes "NewsWrap", community radio's only weekly international LGBT newscast.
(3) We celebrated the 10th anniversary of the modern world's first same-gender marriages by revisiting our on-scene coverage from Amsterdam on April 1, 2001, and took an intimate look back at the life of pioneering U.S. activist Frank Kameny soon after he passed away on National Coming Out Day at the age of 86, with copious comments from the audio archives by the trailblazer himself.
(4) We provided "sound" coverage of:
- the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals' consideration of the federal constitutionality of California's marriage equality-banning Proposition 8, and oral arguments at the state Supreme Court on the legal standing of the ballot measure's sponsors to defend it
- President Obama signing Don't Ask Don't Tell repeal legislation, and reflections and celebrations on the first day that repeal became official
- the first hearings on repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee
- the passage of civil marriage equality legislation in New York, and the first legal weddings of lesbian and gay couples in the Empire State
- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's landmark Human Rights Day speech at the United Nations in Geneva strongly advocating for LGBT equality
(5) We give voice to, and provide support for, LGBT people around the world who cannot speak out for themselves, and uniquely educate non-gay listeners about the issues of concern to sexual minorities... and we can't keep doing that without you!
(6) We entertained you with:
- Queer music maestro JD Doyle's spotlights on trailblazing lesbian folk singer Maxine Feldman and groundbreaking gay singer/songwriter Steven Grossman... and lots of contemporary music by "out" LGBT performers.
- Steve Pride's clips-filled movie previews of "Every Day", "Beginners", "Gun Hill Road", "Weekend", "Dirty Girl", and "We Were Here" -- with insights from the filmmakers themselves.
(7) We featured comments by:
- "Glee's" "Kurt Hummel", the equally-"out" actor Chris Colfer
- Mary Bonauto of the U.S. legal advocacy group Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders
- 19-year-old University of Iowa student Zach Wahls celebrating his two-mom-headed household in the state legislature
- U.S. anti-gay activist Scott Lively and homophobic Congresswoman and GOP presidential wannabe Michele Bachmann
- openly-gay aide to U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords Daniel Hernandez, one of the life-saving heroes of the Tucson, Arizona mass shootings
- Jon Davidson of the U.S. LGBT legal advocacy group Lambda Legal
- U.S. military expert/equality activist Aaron Belkin
- United Nations Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay
- megastar Lady Gaga in Rome at the 2011 EuroPride celebration
- Openly gay U.S. Congressman Barney Frank
(8) We enlightened you with:
- "Queer Life and Literature" commentaries by Janet Mason
- "Rainbow Minutes" profiling key figures in LGBT history produced by Judd Proctor and Brian Burns
(9) Supporting "This Way Out" is the right (and left) thing to do -- and it's a charitable nonprofit tax deduction in the U.S.!
(10) And coming soon to an audio outlet near you:
- Behind the silver screen scenes of "Sons of Tennessee Williams" and "Until We Have Faces", plus Steve Pride's annual "Pride On Screen" review of the best LGBT moving images on the big and small screen in 2011... and conversations with:
- veteran activist Cleve Jones
- iconic filmmaker John Waters
- popular writer Michael Cunningham
- famed gay playwright Robert Patrick
- "Straight But Not Narrow" defrocked Methodist minister and marriage equality advocate Jimmy Creech
Check out the selection below of our "thank you gift" CDs!
You can also postal mail your donation to "This Way Out" at P.O. Box 38327, Los Angeles, CA 90038 (USA).
Please also encourage your friends and colleagues to postal mail a donation or to log on to www.thiswayout.org to support "This Way Out"!
Warmest wishes from our family to you and yours for a healthy and happy holiday season, and for a productive, prosperous and pleasure-filled 2012!
Thank You Gift CDs (all donations are in U.S. dollars)
Choose one of these half-hour programs for each donation of $25; choose two for $50, etc:
A CONVERSATION WITH HARVEY MILK
In March 1978 now-"This Way Out" Coordinating Producer Greg Gordon traveled to Northern California to interview newly elected San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk. Their conversation covered civil rights activism, politics, and some of the gay personalities of the day. The Oscar-winning movie generated renewed interest in this historic figure. And, as you'll hear in this illuminating and highly entertaining half-hour interview with the pioneering LGBT civil rights hero, much of what Harvey had to say still resonates today.
AUDIOFILE 2010 YEAR IN REVIEW
With bluesy/jazzy/country/pop/rock from the personal to the whimsical to the political, the music of Sonia & disappear fear ("Blood, Bones & Baltimore"), Ryan States ("Strange Town"), Roger Mapes ("House of Joy"), Kevin Wong ("The Pink in the Grey"), Sean Wiggins ("Naked Thursdays"), Avi Wisnia ("Something New"), Kristie Stremel ("Color of Stars") and Mike Rickard ("Sweat") is proudly featured in the "AUDIOFILE 2010 YEAR IN REVIEW" (written, produced and hosted by JD Doyle, Chris Wilson, Pam Marshall and Christopher David Trentham).
PRIDE ON SCREEN 2011
On an annual "This Way Out" tradition, award-winning entertainment journalist Steve Pride recalls some of the LGBT moving images that moved him most during the past year with his "Pride On Screen 2011" - including more multi-dimensional TV characters like "Max Blum" on "Happy Endings" (with an audio clip), and proliferating couples like the partnered hunky but unhappy ghosts on "American Horror Story" (another audio clip); then Steve counts down his picks for the Top Ten LGBT Movies of 2011 (from #10 to #1, with audio clips from each and comments by their makers): "The Wise Kids", "The Topp Twins: Unstoppable Girls", "We Were Here", "Gun Hill Road", "August", "Leave It On The Floor", "With You: The Mark Bingham Story", "Beginners", "Weekend", and "Pariah". So butter your popcorn and dim the house lights when you ask for this illuminating "thank you gift" CD.
STRANGER THAN STRAIGHT
The legendary American DJ known as "Dr. Demento" raised audio kitsch to an artform. As "Nurse Pimento", the late Southern California gay activist and radio producer David Fradkin added his own kind of spice to pursuing the peculiarities of popular culture in this early 1980s half-hour production, which features some offbeat queer words and music from Carroll "Archie Bunker" O'Connor, Groucho Marx, Perry Como, Laurel and Hardy, Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks, Tommy Smothers, Martin Mull, Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Noel Coward, the poignant self-aware words of Holocaust teen diarist Anne Frank, Bessie Smith singing, and her niece Ruby telling interviewer Chris Albertson about, their especially entertaining visit to a "Buffet Flat" -- and more!
Choose one of these hour-long programs for each donation of $50; choose two for $100, etc:
THE NATIONAL MARCH ON WASHINGTON FOR LESBIAN & GAY RIGHTS RADIO DOCUMENTARY
This "audio scrapbook" of the first-ever national LGBT march and rally in the U.S. capital on October 14, 1979, produced by "This Way Out" Associate Producer Lucia Chappelle and Coordinating Producer Greg Gordon, illuminates the problems and the passion of the first demonstration of its kind. As rich with the music and culture of the period as it is with the politics, the hour traces the event from the initial planning conference and some activists' heartfelt and sometimes humorous cross-country trip to D.C. on a "Freedom Train" to the big day itself, and its coverage (or lack thereof) in the conventional media.
DIMINISHED CAPACITY
Alive with the sounds from the streets, this documentary, produced by "This Way Out" Coordinating Producer Greg Gordon, captures the enormous impact on the queer community of the November 1978 assassinations of openly gay San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk and gay-friendly Mayor George Moscone. The "diminished capacity" defense (since eliminated legislatively) made it possible for former Supervisor Dan White to receive a very lenient sentence for the dual murders, a decision that sent shockwaves through the Castro District and led to what became known as the "White Night Riots." This fast-paced hour tracks the entire story through and including White's eventual suicide, with comments by many leading lesbian and gay activists and journalists of the time, and riveting thematic music by the Tom Robinson Band.
THE BIGGEST QUEER NEWS OF 2003
A keepsake collection of more than an hour of "This Way Out" reports during a landmark year for LGBT progress, with the voices of many of the activists involved, covering the advent of legal same gender marriage in Canada, the U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturning state sodomy laws, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision opening legal marriage to queer couples, and a P-FLAG mom's "on scene" account of and sound from the historic consecration of openly gay Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson.
SPECIAL PACKAGE: Get all of these CDs for a donation of at least $200. We’ll acknowledge donations of $250 or more on the air upon request.
LGBTIQ Youth Resources:
The Trevor Project is a 24-hour, national help line for gay and questioning teens: U.S. toll-free phone#: 866-4U-TREVOR; website: www.thetrevorproject.org.
Angels and Doves is a U.S. anti-bullying non profit organization: www.AngelsandDoves.com.
The National Center for Bullying Prevention promotes awareness and effective ways to respond to bullying: www.Pacer.org/bullying.
The Matthew Shepard Foundation runs Matthew's Place, an online community and resource center for LGBTQ youth: www.matthewsplace.com.
GLSEN (the Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network) also works to eradicate bullying and bias in U.S. schools: www.glsen.org.
PFLAG: Parents, Families & Friends of Lesbians and Gays - www.pflag.org.
"This Way Out" Associate Producer Lucia Chappelle:
Music Features Producer JD Doyle:
Music Features Producer/"NewsWrap" Co-Anchor Chris Wilson:
"Pride On Screen" Reporter Steve Pride:
"NewsWrap" Co-anchor & Features Producer Jon Beaupré:
"NewsWrap" Co-Anchor Christopher Gaal:
"NewsWrap" Co-Anchor Tanya Kane-Parry:
"NewsWrap" Co-Anchor Sheri Lunn:
"NewsWrap" Co-Anchor Rick Watts:
"NewsWrap" Co-Anchor John Torres:
"NewsWrap" Co-Anchor Pam Marshall:
"NewsWrap" Co-Anchor Michele Pleasant:
"NewsWrap" Co-Anchor Ben Caron:
"NewsWrap" Co-Anchor Robert LeBlanc:
"NewsWrap" Co-Anchor Vash Boddie:
Queer Lit Commentator Janet Mason:
News & Arts Correspondent Bryan Goebel:
"Rainbow Minute" Producers Judd Proctor & Brian Burns:
Write To Us!
We'd love to hear from you. Please make sure to let us know which station you hear us on, what day and time they play the show, and any other comments or questions you may have. We'd also love to hear about any articles written about the show in your local queer (or mainstream!) newspaper.
"This Way Out"
P.O. Box 38327
Los Angeles, CA 90038-0327
U.S.A.
Telephone: +1 818 986 4106
E-mail: TWOradio@aol.com
A CONVERSATION WITH HARVEY MILK
