Last Thursday, Uruguay became the first nation in Latin America to marry a gay couple, after a law allowing couples living together to formalize their union went into effect at the start of the year. Couples who have lived together for five years, regardless of sexual orientation, will be granted spousal rights at the federal level under Uruguay's «cohabitation union law.» Though several cities, including Buenos Aires and Mexico City, have inclusive civil union laws on the books, Uruguay's law is the first nationwide measure in Latin America.

As expected, the Pope is in a holy uproar over Uruguay's move to join Canada as the second nation on the American Continents to support civil and human rights for all. His Holiness is reportedly quite annoyed that he will be required to take time out of his busy schedule of covering up the misdeeds of altar-boy-buggering priests to take a firm stand against the «moral decline» of Uruguay.

Go figure.

Meanwhile, here in the United States of America, formerly known as the world's «beacon of freedom,» unemployed--and unemployable--mental patients rove in packs to harass the occupants of America's outposts of common sense--like Vermont, Massachusetts, and Eureka Springs, Arkansas.

Here at Gay News, we're pretty sure there are readers who have been leaning forward, wondering if we're ever going to say anything about the duty-free import of unhinged lunatics that was foisted on Eureka Springs during Spring Diversity Weekend by Eureka's own un-medicated patients, otherwise known as First Christian Church pastor «Flip» Wilson and Eureka's lone Jericho Rider, Kevin B. Thompson.

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*BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!*

The alarm goes off. 

Shit. 

It's 3:45 A.M.  It feels like I went to bed only 20 minutes ago. I usually go to bed around 7:30 in the evening.  8:00 at the latest.  I have to, in order to get up at 3:45. 

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In the days leading up to and immediately following Spring Diversity Weekend (April 3-6), a dozen couples from five states--Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Missouri and even Florida--signed up for the Eureka Springs Domestic Partnership Registry.

That brings the total number of registrants to 342 individuals (or 171 couples) from Arkansas and 10 other states.

Collectively, they have--in just under 10 months--boosted city revenues by $5,985 by ponying up $35 per couple for a Domestic Partnership Certificate.

Their collective impact on the local economy is incalculable. Or, rather cannot be calculated because no one tracks the spending of newly-hitched domestic partners. Yet.

But, if each couple spent a mere $200 on a hotel room, restaurant meals, drinks and souvenirs, that would translate into $34,200. If they stayed for the weekend and spent $1,000, then local cash registers would benefit to the tune $171,000.

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Since I'm now working two full-time jobs, there's little time for the fun things in life. Like Diversity Weekends in Eureka Springs. (Poor Yip. Poor, poor Yip.)

Oh, I still have fun in my own way. I just don't get to travel for fun. I'm either at my printing company, or doing shift work at my other job, which sucks. Big time. But I try to have a little fun with it. If I couldn't turn it into some kind of game, I'd end up glassy-eyed and drooling for the entire shift. I daydream a lot too.

For example, my kind of fun at the job involves re-naming all the equipment I work with. I'm responsible for running seven different machines. These machines are referred to by the manufacturer-assigned serial numbers. One machine is number 2936. Another is 2479.

I've renamed them Shirley and Mayetta.

There's also Molly, Helen, Carlotta, Mavis and Evelyn.

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While out of towners plan their Diversity Weekends months in advance, the event has a way of sneaking up on busy business owners. So this is a reminder.

Spring Diversity Weekend is this weekend, April 3-6.

The earliest scheduled events offer gay and gay-friendly business owners the opportunity to meet and mingle with and hand out their business cards to visitors who will be shopping downtown later--and in the months and years to come.

Besides giving you the chance to get up close and personal with prospective customers, you can see old friends, make new ones and have a good time at any of these preliminary gatherings:

On Thursday, April 3:

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Harold Ellis, a member of the Mayor's Tourism Task Force, has conveyed an invitation to gay and gay-friendly businesses from the Pine Mountain Jamboree.

«Mike Bishop has invited all LGBT business owners and our supporters in Eureka Springs to attend his show at the Pine Mountain Jamboree on Wednesday, April 9th at 8 p.m.. We are also welcome to attend the pre-show that starts at 7:30. I think those of you who have not attended one of these shows will be pleasantly surprised.

Mike is extending the invitation as his guests. That means free!

It is a great opportunity to see for ourselves what this show is about.

See you there.

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Get a Domestic Partnership Certificate --FREE--and reap special rewards from Eureka Springs businesses

Good things come in pairs, right? Like Domestic Partners. Spring Diversity Weekend, April 4-6, is the perfect time for loving couples to get their official Domestic Partnership Certificate from the City of Eureka Springs. There is no residency requirement.

And, as usual, Gay News Bureau will pick up the tab for the first three couples who--on April 3 or 4 only--take advantage of the only Domestic Partnership in Arkansas. Couples from 11 other states have already done so since the law went into effect in June 2007. In all, 156 couples have been officially recognized by the City of Eureka Springs since then.

What's the catch? Only this: The Registry is available only during regular business hours (9:30 a.m. to noon and 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.) Monday through Friday at the Eureka Springs City Hall clerk's office, 44. S. Main, in the lower level of the Western Carroll County Court House.

Repeat: Domestic Partnership Certificates are NOT available on weekends. So, you must get to City Clerk M.J. Sell's office on Thursday or Friday, April 3 or 4. For the first three couples to beat the clock, the $35 registration fee is on Gay News Bureau.

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It's springtime, and the Gay News Bureau staff has been suffering from a variety of strains of spring fever.

Zeek is circling the globe, working on his art, and preparing for his gig as editor of ionArt Magazine. The last time we heard from Yip, he was working the C-Shift in rubber gloves, paper booties and a hairnet. (Hot? Or not? Readers: weigh in.)

Some of us are in the grips of a simple little home renovation that started with fixing a toilet that wouldn't stop running--which has now morphed into a whole house unravel that makes it impossible to sleep, bathe, cook, launder or get away from it all by sitting on the piers-in-space we used to call our «deck.» (Don't ask. We're a little touchy.)

And, we've been infected by the general Eureka Springs fever to build community gardens this year.

The people America elected because they promised to stamp out the dangerous, death-to-the-culture heresy of gay marriage have done such a fine job of running the country that we're looking at $150/pound lettuce this summer. Produce. It's like diamonds. Except you can't say, «lettuce is forever,» and we couldn't drive lettuce... even if we could afford the gas.

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It is winter in Eureka Springs and not much going on or so it seems. However there is much activity in the town's art studios. Although cold and gray days can be depressing making many want to hibernate, they seem to increase an artist's productivity. With Spring and the tourist season just around the corner, some of us are beading, some are forming clay on a wheel, and some of us are painting.

As I paint, my mind will tune into a theme and sometimes stick to that theme for hours on end. I do not know if the themed-mind-trip is obsessive thinking or more akin to a meditative mantra-like journey. Whatever it might be it cannot be shook off, just like those pesky songs that stick in one's head (It's A Small World After All...). Talking with other artists, I know this occurrence is widespread.

During my last painting session it was a song, «In My Life» by the Beatles, setting my thought pattern for the day. It made me think of lovers and friends I still can recall. My friend Gaye Adegbalola kept coming to mind.

Gaye is a member of the blues group Saffire-the Uppity Blues Women. I consider her to be one of my best girl friends and although we do not see each other often we are always close at heart.

Gaye is an artist of a different stripe, a wordsmith who's writings end up as song lyrics. Ironic since as a child she was denied access to the Fredericksburg, VA, public library because of the color of her skin. The denied access to the written word perhaps made her only more determined and helped form the direction and power of her artful use of the pen.

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In mid April a new magazine, ionART, will hit the newsstands! The publication will help promote Northwest Arkansas as a major art center. Perhaps I should say, «To let everyone know we are a major art center, because we truly are.»

When completed Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville will bring major changes to the art landscape of the area and will have a huge impact on all aspects of the economy of NW Arkansas. IonART will strive to unite through print the area art communities so we can be ready for that exciting change.

The quarterly magazine will be published by Steve Schmidt and Dan Stiel. I will serve as the editor, a very scary but exciting challenge for me. Each issue will feature an artist profile, a gallery profile, a patron profile, event listings, and news of interest about the art scene in NW AR. The publication will have a circulation of fifty-thousand copies, and will have a «classy» look to it, similar to that of «Cityscapes» and «Celebrate» magazines.

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