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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The cookbook publishing business hasn't been real lucrative lately, so I decided to get a real job. While I could sit around the office and play on the Internet all day, my creditors have this pesky attitude that I should actually PAY my bills. Not only that, but I have a jones to deal with. It's called food. I admit it. I eat every day. Sometimes several times a day.

I need cash.

I tried whoring myself on the street corner. Didn't work. My only prospect was a Moms Mabley look-alike who said something like, «Oooooo baby! I be lovin' some o' that young stuff!» I gave HER money just for calling me 'young'.

Being a printer, I thought maybe I could print up some 10s and 20s, but the U.S. Treasury Department frowns on anyone other than the government printing money. What the hell is wrong with a little competition? That's the American way, right? Those silly boys at Treasury don't look at it as competition. They seem to think it's a crime or something, so they fight tooth and nail to keep it all for themselves.

I'd probably get caught if I counterfeited anyway. I'm not a very good liar. I can see me in a store somewhere, trying to pass a bill I printed that morning…

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None. Both would like to be our moral police and force their extreme views on society. The tali-bigots from Missouri and on down to Tupelo are working to set straight the immoral residents of Eureka Springs. And yes, that includes our artists!

An article in a newsletter that I wrote for the artist registry was published in a local newspaper. It was a rather lengthy «year in review» story about events and accomplishments of Eureka's art community during 2007. A letter was written to the editor of the paper questioning why «I (Zeek) hoped that art would bring Peace and joy to the world in 2008.»

Although the author of the letter said he was bothered by the statement, it seemed to me like a rather harmless wish that no one would possibly object to. However the author of the letter responding to my writing did object. He apparently feels that some public art, primarily at the Artery, is and has been offensive to Christian families visiting Eureka Springs. How then could I possibly think art could bring Peace and joy?

You know what? I do not have any say so on what hangs at the Artery and I don't want to make those selections. And heck, I haven't a clue as to the response of Christian families to the art there or to any art. They, Christian families, certainly haven't told me how they feel. I do know that my own artwork has been purchased by many a good Christian and I am thankful for that.

The letter writer went on to accuse the art community of being hate-mongers and of being intolerant. He did this after prefacing his viewpoints by saying he hadn't attended the events, etc. mentioned in my article. I'm doubtful he even knows an artist. How dare he paint us all with his broad brush of prejudicial assumptions. And too, I know lots of artists that are Christians and many of them are my friends.

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