Fuck Jesse Helms!

Sounds like things in your life are upward bound, which is cool. How'd you get to meet Diana Ross, and why are you speaking in eighty languages a day?

...

All I can say about the outcome of the elections in North Carolina is Fuck Jesse Helms! That bastard managed to locate 1.3 million dumbasses who were willing to vote for him. How does he do it?

Anyhow. At least if Jesse dies within the next six years then Gov. Hunt can appoint Harvey to his seat. After all, he is 75 years old. Actually, I'm even happier about the fact that now I can fundraise against Helms for at least another 6 years. Whether I'll be down here that long is another question.

Oh, and we did manage to beat two backwards-ass Republican Congressmen, former Rep.'s Fred Heineman and David Funderburk, who represented the two districts covering Orange, Durham, Wake, Chatham, and a bunch of surrounding counties.

Overall, we registered more than 10,000 young voters through MOVE, plus distributed 20,000 additional voter registration forms and 50,000 voter guides around the state.

There's a Pink House party tonight, and I think Lem's going to be DJ'ing. You should see his little girl Donya, she is so adorable. She's almost two years old now, I think.

Speaking of mutual friends, I also talked to Derek Shadid the other day, he called me up earlier this week to offer his condolences about the election. I'm definitely going to make a road trip out to Oklahoma City to see him around January or February.

When I went up to DC for the AIDS quilt recently, I stayed with Caroline Philson, who just started this year at Howard Law. It was good to see her, except that she's living in a really fucked up part of town, and there were four gunshots across the street from us while I was there.

- e-mail to Lydia

Pink House fete

ch-scene listserv, 11-9-96

· To: ch-scene@listserv.oit.unc.edu
· Subject: Pink House fete
· From: ecstasy@calzone.oit.unc.edu (Ian Williams)
· Date: 9 Nov 1996 13:14:39 -0500

Truncated version - there is a dance jam/party at the Pink House tonight (Saturday night). Come with minds way open.

-i

--
Ian Williams, from the Pink House on a misty November eve, Chapel Hill, NC

Raps-N-Snaps feat. DJ Pez

Pre-Summer Jam '95 at Seeds of Sheba

Rave Your Head benefit party for SCALE

Pink House Jam: Back by Popular Demand

Party flyer designed by Lem Butler.

You really would have enjoyed this party. It was truly a monster jam, with Lem and Reggie splayed across our kitchen counters surrounded by stacks of equipment, speakers, turntables and discs. N'Gai's room was at all times like the eye of the hurricane, populated by a panoply of characters looking for some peace.


Approximately 500-600 revelers turned out, booties were shook, 40's were consumed in mass quantities. Most people couldn't believe there was a keg. The number of fine women was astounding. Malcolm Aaron was there, and Lee Richardson and Chris Miller showed up, but the number of other Alphas was bereft. The only true buzzkill was my having to deal with repeated visits by the police. But the party trickled out around 2 am, before they could come down heavy on us with noise fines, and thus all was fine.

J: Donald Williams was apparently at that party. I didn't see him, though.
E: He was on the basketball team, right?
J: You must be kidding. He was MVP of the championship in '93, the one who hit all the clutch 3-pointers that put the game away!

- Erik & Jay, 2009

As per usual with all Pink House parties, there were no outstanding incidents of violence. Somebody punched a hole in one of our walls, but it was one of N'Gai's friends and he later owned up to it. Curiously enough, a similar thing happened when we threw another party the weekend before last. Remember that window that you kicked in once, on the side porch door? Well, another knucklehead busted in the very same pane! Preston Harrison Dunlop, in fact. He came clean amidst profuse apologizing. Obviously, this window has earned its place as a holy knucklectics shrine.

- Letter to Dana

Great Hall Party after the Black Cultural Awareness Expo

Designed by Lem Butler (Pink House Graphics).

The Making of the African Queen

"Play presents a view of homosexuality," Daily Tar Heel, 4/12/91

By MARA LEE
Staff Writer

Don't be fooled. "The Making of the African Queen," showing in the Union Cabaret Friday and Saturday, is not a documentary about Katharine Hepburn.

Senior Paul Dawson wrote, directed, and stars in this one-man show to give a personal account of "one gay's journey into light." "It's about growing up in a very repressive atmosphere coming to terms with homosexuality in Helmsville," he said. The play uses monologues, modern dance, classical music, pop music, and even disco to express Dawson's thoughts.

Killian Manning choreographed the show. "I had a lot of thoughts going through my head," Manning said. "I realized I had spent a lot of time looking for scripts these thoughts might apply to. I just bought a journal and started writing them down I just took it everywhere I went. "About a month and a half later, I decided this was my show."

Dawson said he had deliberately chosen to present "African Queen" in the Union. "I wanted this play to be in the Student Union rather than in the drama building because it deals so directly with the University in many cases. The audience is so important. Hopefully this play will be seen by some of the people that really need to see it and not (be) preaching to the converted."

Angela Crisp, producer of the play and representative of the Theater Arts Committee, said, "We support students to come up with incredible, creative pieces like this. We felt it was a subject that needed to be talked about." Clint Curtis, one of the dancers, said he had chosen to work on the show for several reasons. "I wanted to be a little more open-minded about the subject. I think in the beginning that was the biggest thing I had to set aside, being in this gay and lesbian piece not worrying if people thought I was homosexual. It really didn't matter."

The play speaks to several audiences, Dawson said. "Among other things, it will offer an identity for a group of people who don't often see things portrayed that they can relate to. And of course, I'm being vague and I don't need to. I'm speaking of gays. "It's a challenge to your tolerance. I hope it leads us to look at the tolerance we have and why we have certain fears and hatred, because sometimes I don't think we know."

Curtis said, "It's a very personal play just because it has a lot to do with this life we've all been closed off to." Crisp said the script was much more than just an informative piece. "Some monologues are very humorous. Some are bitter. Some are heartbreaking. It's powerful, startling, shocking, intense and ultimately positive. There are so many feelings running throughout He does this incredible Katharine Hepburn imitation." Dawson said, "I think it's a type of play that I've not seen around here. It draws on popular music, modern dance, a one-man show. "It's a very frank play, and this is a subject that is rarely expressed frankly. And that kind of visibility is what we need now."

"The Making of the African Queen; Or, One Gay's Journey Into Light" will be playing at 8 pm. April 12 and 13 in the Union Cabaret. Admission is free. A discussion will follow. It is sponsored by TAC of the Union Activities Board and the Carolina Gay and Lesbian Association.

(Note from 2014: This one-man show was a tour-de-force, mixing personal memoir with modern dance, and reaching a particularly emotional climax when Sylvester's You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) came booming at top volume through the Cabaret's sound system.

Besides being the most heartfelt testimony I've ever witnessed of what it meant to grow up black and gay in Jesse Halms' North Carolina, this night made me want to throw a disco party there, a dream we later realized in early 1997 with Pez on the wheels of steel. Why the Student Union eventually chose to destroy the Cabaret in the name of "renovations" is a shame and tragedy, because it was an amazing, versatile performance space.

Fifteen years later, Paul Dawson went on to appear in John Cameron Mitchell's infamous 2006 film Shortbus. As the above article makes clear, Clint was one of the dancers, Killian Manning did the choreography, and Angela Crisp produced the play. As I remember, I had a little thing for Angela around this time. Paul Ferguson was both assistant director and a script consultant.)