The Miami Herald from Miami, Florida • 135

TUESDAY OCTOBER 13 1992 INTERNATIONAL EDITION THE MIAMI HERALD 138 Despite stereotype gay men stand out in the crowd love to hear more of exotic Shchedrin SCREAMING THRONG: Adoring fans sway to Wanna Be omethm during Michael Bucharest concert shown live Saturday on HBO Jackson course When she finally finished she have enough confidence in herself to take the exams for her license The bills we agreed to share 50-50 have shifted to 90-10 She complained so much about being broke that I felt sorry for her and took over That's where I made my big mistake I should have kept it 50-50 and let her complain There is never a thank-you for anything We argue constantly Nothing is ever settled because we get that far I'm thinking of leaving but I need to ask you one simple question: Am I justified? Fed Up in Oakland Liz sounds a bit scatterbrained but not hopeless A woman who takes care of the house and kids is not a total I urge you to get joint counseling and try to save this situation Too often couples with children who split merely exchange one set of problems for another Gem of the Day: If you want to be a world-class bore tell everything Dear Ann: I'm a 34-year-old gay male professional in the closet and tired of it 1 watched the press coverage of the parade for Gay Pride Week and as usual the men representing the gay community were sashaying around in wigs dresses chaps and harnesses Like most gays thoroughly disgusted with the way we are portrayed by Hollywood and the media To be fair however a large part of the blame must be placed on the shoulders of a small minority of the homosexual community I refer to the effeminate limp-wristed nasalvoiced queens who jump in front of the cameras and make a spectacle of themselves Those weirdos do not represent me or any of my gay friends Moreover they are the reason homosexuals are considered freaks and and must hide their sexuality Small wonder average people are reluctant to give gays equal rights They want men who wear wigs dresses and high heels teaching their kids and fighting in their country's armies And who can blame them? Stable people gay and straight do not flaunt their sexuality and private lives So please keep it in the bedroom and let the rest of us be judged for who we are and not by the distorted image you portray You deny all of us the opportunity to be accepted as decent constructive members of the community which we are Sabotaged in Calgary Most gay males are indistinguishable from straight males They must cringe when they see the bizarre antics you describe Every minority has its lunatic fringe extremists and nut cases who impede progress block acceptance and make life hard for everybody Dear Ann: That letter from the woman who complained because her boyfriend is mooching free food and rent caught my eye I know how she feels even though the shoe is on the other foot in my case 48 is 36 been together for 10 years Our plan was to move in together with her kids then ages 2 and 7 and share expenses right down the middle We found a nice place and Liz did a great job of taking care of the house and kids Liz signed up for a nine-month course in hairdressing and when our troubles started It took her two years to complete the Showman overcomes JACKSON FROM 16B who doubtless spends many nights alone At one point Michael came to us as Christ swathed in holy light head back eyes closed arms outstretched as if on a cross The concert itself was more of the same Jackson who had to cancel the remaining dates of his European tour because of throat problems gave the Bucharest crowd favorites like Smooth Criminal Thriller Billie Jean and Black Or White all laden with spectacle overkill and intercut with images of adoration girls screaming and crying fainting and being carried out by the Red Cross handlers are obviously attempting to evoke the Beatles when they do these kinds of reaction shots but they wear thin on repetition and make Jackson seem insecure in need of constant reinforcement and self-interested to the point of obsession All that crotch-grabbing only adds to that general impression For all of that though performance meaning his singing and dancing was as riveting as ever Saturday night Yes his voice was ragged on Human Nature and his duet with Siedah Garrett on I Just Stop Loving You had all the sexual tension of a kindergarten assembly but those were the exceptions Roger Clinton takes on emerges from big shadow CLINTON FROM 16B the people the imagination the creative atmosphere the go-for-it energetic attitude I kind of love he said sipping a bowl of soup drinking iced tea and nervously looking at his watch during a lunch break not willing to go for it in this world you just get swallowed up I kind of feel this is the place for Roger took the relatively low-level job carrying coffee and sodas to the actors collating scripts working as a gofer on the set after Harry brother Danny heard him sing one night in Little Rock during his gubernatorial inauguration in 1990 "He came up to me backstage and told me I was the blackest-sounding white boy he had ever heard which is the highest compliment that could be said Roger laughing told me I had talent and that he would introduce me to his Harry Thomason soon offered Roger Clinton who was living in Nashville a job in Los Angeles A tough life It has not been an especially easy life for Roger who is 10 years younger than Bill He says candidly that Bill has been a protector and dominant influence in his life Roger is the son of Virginia Blythe Clinton Kelley and her second husband Roger Clinton Sr whom she divorced remarried and nursed until he died of cancer in 1968 when Roger was 12 Bill Clinton took his last name MUSIC FROM 16B performance performance was almost as phenomenal He made the bravura passages seem effortless playing the finale as fast as possible and sometimes faster Although I take stop watches to concerts it wouldn't surprise me to discover that Tiempo broke the record for speed in the concerto set by Martha Argerich his teacher The good news is that Tiempo not only possesses Argerich's brand of breathtaking facility he is also an interesting and sensitive musician The University of Miami Symphony and Akira Endo give him the support he deserved but Tiempo was a good sport about it and even played two encores for his unsuspecting and ecstatic audience in UM Gusman Hall Based on this and his Scarbo heard earlier in the week Tiempo 20 is headed for what with any luck at all should be a huge career Endo and the UM Symphony sounded far better even crackling in dances from West Side Story and Rodion marvelously exotic First Concerto for Orchestra Bernstein once conducted this score so bracing in its insistent rhythms and use of Russian chastushka or folk limerick themes Its kaleidoscopic orchestration imitates folk instruments with a Shchedrin on the premises was applauded to the echo We ought to hear his music more often Orquesta de San Luis Remembering how brilliantly Thomas and the New World Symphony played Astor Tangazo (Big Tango) for orchestra a few years ago the Orquesta de San dismal performance last Thursday was hard to credit Dario Ntaca is a musician with refreshing ideas about tempos and phrasing But his 35-member orchestra barely a year old ready to officially represent a musically astute country like Argentina as it did here Its 17-to 30-year-old musicians are an unhappy marriage of competence and incompetence There is a good percussionist a fine first flutist and a few other individual wind and brass players worth hearing But the horns are fuzzy the strings mostly amateurish Collective intonation was atrocious The group simply handle the Piazzolla and made an utter mess of Mozart and Beethoven Lina Parnas an Argentine soprano had the right idea about classic line in Chio mi Scordi di te but she sounded breathy and short of sustained tone The piece for soprano piano and orchestra was ing however for Ivan tender tone coloring and phrasing of the piano part Listening I felt like asking him to sit right back down and play some Mozart concertos But the Mozartean Second Concerto of Beethoven- which came next had to do He performed it here memorably once but this time Davis really surpassed himself The combination of precision eloquence and pliancy in accentuation were sharp reminders of just how superlative Davis is at his best He did this for Festival Miami because he teaches at UM but the high caliber of his performance cried out for major orchestral collaboration So did the caliber of ideas for Seventh Symphony His was tremendously brisk and buoyant Beethoven but the orchestra's execution was so spotty the young conductor was hopelessly handicapped in projecting his conception Renaissance singers Amid all this orchestral music II Virtuoso Ritrovo a seven-mefnber troupe of Renaissance singers from Trento Italy provided a charming oasis of professionalism for the festival The first half of their Friday night concert I caught at UM Gusman opened gravely with a paean to the four seasons from Giovan second book of madrigals for five voices dated 1557 Garbed in Renaissance costumes seated behind music stands the singers gently swayed as they blended their voices with superb line shading and exquisite synchronization Barbara Pichler and Margherita Guarino were the high pure sopranos Giancarlo Comar the burnished bass Soothing five-part madrigals by Lasso Pordenon and others from the Accademia Filar- monica di Verona of 1 582 were a balm to the ear high time someone here launched a full-fledged series featuring early music groups just as our chamber music series bring top-quality string quartets trios and other ensembles STEVEN SEAGAL: As ship cook with a dark other side he takes himself very very seriously Super-killer Seagal strikes again in Siege spectacle face it the man is one of the greatest living performers And when he busy allowing himself to be adored Michael was what every showman dreams of being: impossible not to watch a thing of wonder full of quicksilver dance moves and vocal invention The spectacle got kind of tired quickly perhaps because it seem to mean anything shot from a confetti cannon he disappears like magic he is chased by ghouls he stands defiant amid exploding fireworks and gale force winds he hangs from a crane he spell subtlety if you spotted him the first six letters Until the end that is when Jackson stood alone on the stage using his sweetest falsetto to lead a singalong on his save-the-world ballad Heal The World He ended it by leading a group of children representing the nations of the world onto the stage It was a powerfully understated moment and it segued neatly into the fierce call-and-response of his final number Man In The Mirror What a great ending that was or would have been anyway But after that came a protracted sequence in which Jackson (or a stand-in not sure) donned a space suit and jet pack lifted off circled the stage and flew away as fireworks bloomed against the night sky It kind of fit MOVIE REVIEW UNDER SIEGE (R)- Cast: Steven Seagal Tommy Lee Jones Gary Busey Erika Eleniak Patrick O'Neal Director: Andrew Davis Producers: Arnon Milchan Steven Seagal Steve Reuther Jack Bernstein Peter MacGregor-Scott Screenwriter: JF Lawton Cinematographer: Frank Tidy Music: Gary Chang A Warner Brothers release Running time: 99 minutes Vulgar language brief nudity violence shots) seems small and understaffed There are supposed to be 30 bad guys but they appear to outnumber the crew and the interior scenes of the command stations are barely more ambitious than Star Trek's bridge But this is Die Hard at sea and the point is for things to move too fast for us to notice that sometimes pretty cheesy In this effort Under Siege is largely successful Seagal who splits his kills roughly in half between automatic-weapon fire and knifings a lethal eye gouge too) dispatches someone every third minute Miss July after some early whining about the agent who booked her the gig (do you need an agent to arrange for a nude cake-spring?) assists capably Among the other attractions are the unhinged performance by Jones and epic insistence on taking himself very very seriously But the best thing about the film is the short sequence in which Gary Busey as the executive officer turns up in drag For the Navy these days one thing after another imumm mr Ann Landers welcomes letters from readers Write to her in care of Living The Miami Herald 1 Herald Plaza Miami Fla 33132 Enclose a stamped self-addressed envelope for a personal reply Burbank at fund-raising events and speaking fervently and personally about the presidential candidate people want to report about my love for my brother about my campaigning for him about my music about how close our family is and how hard worked to get to this he said angrily want to talk about my drug problem nine years ago and my incarceration so Clinton said the lesson he had learned from his older brother was never to quit learn that well enough when I was he said quietly sink He remains a little uneasy about handling the fame and responsibilities that come with being the brother of a presidential candidate always worried that trying to exploit he said criteria I have is if I spoken to someone in a long time and they pop up out of nowhere and try to remind you of all the times we had together and tell me how many times they tried to contact me but able to Sure sure After supposedly feverish attempts to reach me they just so happen to contact me before the election You hear from people who seem to come out of the woodwork the more subtle ones vulnerable Clinton continued want to be leery of everyone I not trust people I want to be burned but if 1 am just get back up on my feet and not let it happen again what my brother taught What are people in the know saying? Find out in Viewpoint every Sunday INTERNATIONAL EDITION headlines taking a new twist in tabloids By the time Bill was elected governor of Arkansas in 1982 Roger had dropped out of college and was traveling the nightclub circuit struggling to earn a living as a singer When Bill was making plans to run for the presidency in the mid-1980s Roger was serving a year in federal prison for cocaine distribution Except for a brief relapse in 1987 Roger says been free of drugs Now he seems to be struggling to make up for lost time What disturbs him are not only newspaper and magazine accounts dwelling on his drug problems but also stories that raise the image of Billy Carter President Jimmy younger brother whose fondness for beer and redneck colloquialisms made him a frequent source of embarrassment for the Carter White House Roger sees the comparison as nothing less than not-so-veiled anti-Southern bias Billy Carter died of cancer in 1982 know the man at all just read about said Roger Clinton if they want to compare me to Billy Carter why they talk about the last two years of his life when he was so courageous when he traveled around the country at his own expense counseling people with terminal illness He was a man of dignity at the end Why the press talk about Campaigns in California Roger Clinton who wears an oversize button on his shirt campaigns for his brother in California appearing ment muster a bag of ice? Sorry The Sun never answered And Lucky the hurricane hound? Well finding a Doc Havener in the Big Easy was Big Hard The phone book failed The American Veterinary Medical Association which includes about 85 percent of all vets nationwide had no Havener And the Louisiana Board of Veterinary Licensing never heard of him The assistant editor for news Alan Fayette said he to have the number for the vet But he promised to contact Lucky's unnamed Dade family to see if they wanted to go public they just pulled that name out of a scoffed the licensing secretary Elise Chambers Elise! Next thing you know be saying that voodoo queen really summoned soul and placed it into the body of Bryan Norcross! TABLOIDS FROM 16B these publications all based in Palm Beach County just out of path For instance Satan is even tougher to photograph than Sean Penn Is that him for sure? Did the photographer ask for ID? Here at The Herald it has been noted that the picture bears an uncanny resemblance to several editors and at least one exspouse Weekly World Managing Editor Sal Ivone assures this is Old Scratch For one thing the photog says so The picture also was passed around the office and everyone agreed it could only be The Prince of Darkness of the a magnificent says Ivone one of the best photos ever And the UFO? How come the Army could get a of into Homestead early on when the entire federal govern- By BILL COSFORO Herald Movie Critic Steven Seagal romps happily through his action pictures a B-boy rampant on a field of carnage No matter the threat characters are never even winded James Bond only without the breeding This may well be what keeps Seagal popular (no other explanation springs easily to mind): invincible in a time of fallible heroes At the end of a fight that would have sent Stallone to intensive care Seagal stands barely bloodied and grinning and plants a kiss on the gal he has just won What sets his latest movie Under Siege apart from his earlier is that the gal at hand is July a reluctant convert to violence When we first meet the centerfold (Erika Eleniak) she is preparing to spring topless from a giant birthday cake flown in by helicopter for a surprise birthday party in honor of the captain of the battleship Missouri Miss July has taken too many seasick pills and has dozed off When she wakes up and springs she confronts a wardroom full of dead sailors What has happened is that the surprise party has turned into an assault on the ship led by a renegade CIA agent (Tommy Lee Jones) who plans to steal the complement of nuclear-tipped Tomahawk cruise missiles and sell them to the highest Third-World bidder Only one man can stop this scheme the cook (played by Seagal) Of course not just the chief cook He is also in the finest tradition of the modern Hollywood potboiler a One-Man Killing Machine Under Siege is never at all convincing everything about the battleship (except the exterior ft INTERNATIONAL EDITION SljcdiTtanti Herald Look for it at major hotels and newsstands.