28th Annual New Orleans
Boat & Sportfishing Show
The New Orleans Boat &
Sportfishing Show will return
to the Louisiana Superdome on Wed., Feb. 4 through Sun., Feb. 8, to celebrate its 28th consecutive year of production. For nearly three decades, this outstanding annual boat and sportfishing exposition offers the general public the largest event of its kind in the Gulf South. This year's Show themed-Have Some Fun - Spend A Little Time - Save a Whole Lot of Money-will fill the Louisiana Superdome with more than 225 exciting, quality exhibits and over 500 new 1998 model boats and personal watercraft on display from over 100 different manufacturers. In addition, the show will feature special attractions, entertainment and informative daily seminars for the entire family.
The annual five-day event attracts tens of thousands of boating, fishing and outdoors enthusiasts from Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama and brings them together with leading national and local manufacturers, distributors, and retailers displaying a wide array of boats including ski boats, pontoon boats, sailboats, sport fishing boats, cruisers and personal watercraft.
In addition to the new 1998 boats and personal watercraft, hundreds of exhibits will utilize over 175,000 square feet of space which includes the Superdome floor and the expanded Promenade area located behind the grandstands surrounding the Dome floor. The Promenade area features more boats, plus the latest in engines, electronics, maps, boat lifts, T-tops and Towers, marine paints and finishes, rods, reels, lures and other fishing gear, batteries, boat seats and upholstery, custom trailers, outdoor clothing and accessories, marine insurance and financing, fishing and sailing clubs, fishing lodges, resorts and marinas, travel information, fishing guides and charters, outdoor clothing and much, much more.
Playwright Goins Back in Black Box
Baton Rouge is not noted for
being a theater city yet some
very good productions come and go. Of all the local playwrights, Darren C. Goins is out there writing, directing, and starring in his own plays.
Back From Below Ground Zero is an odyssey of recovery and is scheduled for Jan. 27-28 at 7:30pm in The Black Box, 137 Coates Hall. A $3 donation can be made at the door.
This play could easily be called "The Darren C. Goins Story." Family and community pressures play a big role in the story. After talking with this playwright, it's easy to understand why his story made it to the printed page.
"Pressures are especially strong for most college students," Goins explains, "but when you are gay, there's even more to contend with than just the learning process."
There's a moment of silence, and he continues.
"Stress is always there. Those who have been over achievers in grammar and secondary school feel the tension rise. They are expected to make good grades and contribute to their communities through extracurricular activities. They are also expected to instantly be able to handle their own economics and juggle their personal lives."
Goins smiles.
"Unfortunately, many of these pressures are self induced," he says. "Past performance makes many first and second year college students feel that they should be able to handle every crisis that arises. It is most discouraging when the structures that provided a sense of identity are taken away. Good or bad, peer pressure, societal biases (such as heterosexism), and the family structure provide many of these students with a sense of fitting in."
"Emotions aren't factored into the equation," he says as he shrugs his shoulders. "In the milieu of the university campus, students must become feeling as well as thinking beings. Just making good grades doesn't quite cut it. Students face an emotional mind field that must be negotiated to gain a sense of self.
"Coming out is sometimes one of the most difficult things an individual can do," he says. And for Goins, it was a very trying period in his life. He tells about it in this play.
Goins sought himself. Back From Below Ground Zero is how he did it. He developed the play in his Analysis and Performance of Nonfiction class at LSU. The script for this solo performance was adapted from interviews with family and physicians, research on bipolar disorder, and excerpts in Goins' journal. Over a dozen characters in the script aid in the telling of the author's odyssey of recovery from bipolar disorder.
He has dedicated this play to Darrel D. Goins Jr., Molly M. Goins-Cox, and Michael D. Cox and credits them with helping him to survive his journey to self.
Goins graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Arts from Emory University in 1994. He received his Master's degree from Florida State University in 1997 and moved to Baton Rouge to pursue his Ph.D at LSU in Jan. 1997. He has written three plays including last season's Within the Realm, which was also performed in the Black Box Theater. He appeared in FSU's Mainstage season production of A Christmas Carol as Mr. Fezziwig. Prior acting credits include Ronnie Shaugnessy in John Guare's House of Blue Leaves at Florida Playwrights Theatre in Ft. Lauderdale. He also appeared as Koltun in Theatre Emory's Every Other Monday Reading Series production of Jackpot, and Merle in EOM's production of Journey to Jefferson, an adaptation of Faulkner's As I Lay Dying.
Goins is writing his dissertation on representations of the male body in performance art.
DNC Includes Gays & Lesbians
In Delegate Selection Rules
For 2000 Convention
The Democratic National
Committee's National
Committee's bodies governing the delegate selection rules for the 2000 National Democratic Convention-the DNC Rules & Bylaws Committee & DNC Executive Committee-voted unanimously in a meeting recently to include the first-ever language requiring state parties to specifically include Gay & Lesbian representation as part of the delegate selection process for the 2000 Convention.
"Gay and Lesbian Democrats and our community have taken a significant step forward," said Jean O'Leary of California, Chair of the DNC Gay & Lesbian American Caucus and member of the DNC Executive Committee, the governing body of the DNC. "These new rules will likely increase the number of openly Gay and Lesbian delegates to the 2000 Convention and mark the first time that a major National party organization has included Gays and Lesbians as a priority for selecting delegates to a national party Convention."
"These new rules reflect what we have done for the Democratic Party and this Administration over the years as well as how critical our community's support will be for a Democratic Presidential victory in 2000," said Jeff Sore, Vice Chair of the DNC Gay & Lesbian American Caucus and At-Large DNC Member from New York.
The DNC Rules & Bylaws Committee voted unanimously in favor of an amendment to the sections of the 1996 delegate selection rules governing outreach and inclusion of groups traditionally active but under represented in the Democratic Party. The amendment, submitted by California DNC member Garry Shay, requires state parties to develop and submit to the DNC outreach plans for delegate selection that include those "historically under represented" in the Democratic party because of "race/ethnicity, age, sexual orientation or disability." The new rules also require state parties to give "priority of consideration" to these under represented groups in a state's delegate selection process" in order to assist in the achievement of full participation by these groups."
Of the 4,925 delegates and alternates to the 1996 National Democratic Convention in Chicago, at least 146 were openly Gay or Lesbian. The site for the 2000 Convention has not yet been selected, but a Site Advisory Committee was recently appointed by DNC Co-Chairs Steve Grossman and Governor Roy Romer (D-Colorado) to review bids from over 20 cities for the 2000 Convention. The Site Advisory Committee includes three openly gay men: Terry Bean of Oregon, Andrew Reyes of North Carolina and Andy Tobias of New York.
Cutting Edge Humor
No, it's not a support group for
people who forgot to wear
bike shorts on a 30-mile weekend ride, but an outrageous online Lesbian humor magazine." So says The Web magazine in its review of "Lesion Nation"--an online 'zine that is "sharply written, stylishly designed and agenda free." "Do you possess upstanding morals, vote Republican, and eagerly await the next issue of Martha Stewart Living?," the magazine asks. "Best stay away, then, unless you wanna see yourself skewered." [http://www.lesion.com].
Lambda Legal Looks Ahead To New Year
Celebrating its 25 anniversary
in 1998, Lambda Legal Defense
and Education Fund (LLDEF) has announced that the new year will see a record number of lesbian, gay and AIDS-related concerns in the country's highest courts.
"The Supreme Court and other high-level courts are expected to address employment, the military, disability protections, family and other fundamental constitutional issues for lesbians, gay men and people with HIV in 1998," said LLDEF Legal Director Beatrice Dohrn. "We expect an unprecedented number of decisions from top-level state as well as federal courts, and they are likely to affect the way lesbians and gay men are treated across the country for many years to come."
In addition to the Hawaii high court same-sex marriage ruling, LLDEF expects to see the Shahar job discrimination case come before the U.S. Supreme Court as well as another employment-related case, Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc., which urges the federal sexual harassment law be applied without regard to sex or sexual orientation. For more information contact Peg Byron (LLDEF) at 212.809.8585, ext. 2309 or pgr. 888.987.1984.[GLAAD]
