Pink Paper Ends Its 25 Year Run

It's always a disappointment when yet again another form of media decides to fold its tent whether print or digital.

So it is that the website and former print paper, Pink Paper (not to be confused with the website Pink News) announced on Tuesday it was ending its 25 year run of providing LGBT news.

Media director Kim Watson of Pink Paper publishers MPL commented: “With a hardening economy, diminished job advertising and increasing global online news services covering similar stories, it has become harder to justify continuance of this award-winning website as part of our publishing portfolio.

“We have chosen instead to focus our energies on our main print and digital brands GT (Gay Times) and DIVA. We thank the community, staff, advertisers  and especially our readers for their support over the years and hope they will find the same valuable support and information from GT and DIVA in future.”

The paper was started in 1987 as a weekly newspaper, then in 2009 switched to an on-line only format to continue delivering the news to the LGBT community in the UK and around the globe.

It's The Full Monty SportsCenter

Okay so why wasn't there this stuff to cover when I was a sports broadcaster ?

I reported on more mundane things like Paul Newman racing at Lime Rock (and going for a ride with him once in his racing car ... NOTE .. if you ever do that make sure you take a motion sickness pill).

The only time I got to see naked guys was in the locker room but out on the playing field ... in public .. be still my quivering heart.

So it is that OutSports has an article about the Nude Blacks rugby team who play in the buff in New Zealand.

And the Otago Daily Times has ... well ... let's go to the video tape.

Da da da ... Da da da.

Host Sean Savoy Talks To FOTR

Tonight I'll be talking with Sean Savoy whose 30 minute program House of Savoy was booted from Reno, NV radio station KKFT-FM on August 12.

Sean will be given the opportunity to tell the whole story about the show being removed by station owner Jerry Evans (no relation) after Savoy did one program on LGBT issues with activist Will Kolb.

Savoy has returned to Reno's air-waves with his House of Savoy show now heard on KJFK-AM.

Our show tonight can be heard LIVE at 9:30 PM (PT) and at 12:30 AM early Wednesday morning in the Eastern Time Zone.

You'll also be able to hear a replay anytime after the show has aired.

Was the show dropped because KKFT-FM is a conservative talker or was this a clear case of homophobia at work in making programming decisions on what can and cannot be heard on a local radio station ?

Station owner Evans when discussing the "hate email" he had received after the show was dropped and GLAAD got involved was quoted the following in a September 10 article at the Reno Gazette Journal, "these people - these precious people - think that it's an affront to their something or another. They seem to think they are deserving of this. The show was on for a year and the few times I heard it I thought "well this is weird".

UPDATE - 9/19/12

Here's the link to the show so you can listen to the replay.

Read an extended article about the interview at Focus On The Rainbow - WordPress.

Another Birthday Without My BFF

A little while ago I went on the FB page of the niece of my best friend.

I rarely visit her page even though we're FB friends. Next to her name was "Bonach" something I and others always called Bill.

Seeing his nickname caused my eyes to well up and are still as I write this.

Last August while I sat in the recliner in the livingroom waiting for the ambulance to come when I was having a heart attack, I looked at the photo of Bill and I taken back in the 90's in the backyard of my house.

I looked at Bill and I said ... "I'm may be joining you soon ... be waiting at the gate".

Today I celebrate my 59th birthday, that's six birthdays without Bill and six very long years.

A day doesn't go by I don't think about him, the fights we had, the laughs we shared and as close to being brothers as two guys can be.

My Dad always called Bill his adopted son, and Bill always said he was the good son while I was the bad.

We were supposed to grow old together like two grumpy old men.

That wasn't meant to be.

But we had almost forty years of friendship, that's a long time to commit undying friendship to someone.

Best friends forever shouldn't be abbreviated because the true meaning is anything but short and lives on even when one passes before the other.

The memories I have will never leave and I believe we'll be together again one day.

Birthdays are suppose to be happy days.

Now they're just another day to mark his passing.

Thanks for being my Best Friend Forever.