Santa Cruz Sentinel from Santa Cruz, California • Page 19

Sentinel Sunday, t-S fttti i1 bWm Entertainment Gay, in love with a woman, and a father Life has taken some strange turns for punk rocker Tom Robinson much genuine homophobia in the world. I know what homophobia is, and it isn't going out with a woman." Susan, the woman he lives with but whose last name he declines to give to protect her privacy, is someone he has known for many years. "We gradually got closer, and one thing led to another," he says. "Gay men, in my experience are sexually adventurous. We try everything.

In many ways, doing it with a woman was like the ultimate perversion, and in this case, it worked out rather well. If you do Robinson's long-dashed expectation that punk might spearhead a social revolution. Two other songs "Silence" and "Chance" deal with the AIDS epidemic, which Robinson says has taken many friends, including Dez Tozer, a former lover to whom the album is dedicated. Since his last American record, "Hope and Glory," Robinson has recorded four albums that have been distributed outside the United States and has toured through Europe, Australia, Japan and Canada. He has also branched out into performance art and radio.

For four years, he appeared at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, doing a program of songs and readings from Bertolt Brecht, T.S. Eliot, as well as own lyrics. On the BBC's Radio 4, he is the host of "Locker Room," a radio talk show about men and masculinity. Robinson's own personal life, he says, has been the subject of considerable misunderstanding. After a British tabloid erroneously stated that he had gotten married and implied that she had changed his sexual politics and orientation, he was labeled a homophobe and a traitor by a writer in "Gay Times," an English publication.

"It was pathetic," recalls the singer, who subsequently explained himself in the newspaper. "Here I've spent 20 years fighting for people's rights to love whomever they want and when there's so Ely STEPHEN HOLDEN Th New York Times HEN TOM ROBINSON was an openly cay punk rock rebel in the late 1970s, he had no idea that a decade and a half later he would be extolling the satisfactions of fatherhood and a longterm relationship with a woman he refers to as his "partner." "In 1977 it really did feel that the world would end or change," the English singer and songwriter recalls. "The winter of '79 seemed so far into the future to me that it was unimaginable." Robinson, wearing a white sports shirt, tennis shorts and sneakers, sprawls on a sofa in his Manhattan hotel suite. The singer, who lives in London, is visiting New York to promote "Love Over Rage," his first album to be released in the United States in 10 years. This October, he will embark on an American tour.

Pale and out-of shape, the 44-year-old singer is barely recognizable from the scruffy young pop star who stormed the English pop charts in 1977 with a revved-up anthem, "2-4-6-8 Motorway." The next year, Robinson released an album, "Power in the Darkness," whose blunt lyrical broadsides amounted to a virtual Tom Robinson U.S. tour starts in October "We were deaf and selfishWe were smug and dumb," sings Robinson, recalling a fling that ended "when he took my money and never said goodbye." "Days," the album's most studied examination of the past, is a sort of post-punk answer to "American Pie" in the way it uses a semi-mythical vocabulary to evoke English rock history from the Rolling Stones through the Sex Pistols through Live Aid. The lyric revolves around a recurrent phrase, "the days that changed the world," that refers to SAT, SUN, MON ONLYI BACK TO THE Mai TASTE A MOMENT Of MAONESSI Dmn StocMwsll Jack Ntcholton In PSYCH-OUT 7 30 10:36 PLUS rr urn i niw viiid uiun 01 Patar Fond 4 nntt Hoppar 'n THI TRIP 9 05 CINEMA 427-1711 i 5 fSm w' Ricardo Montalban returns to television dictionary of punk-rock political correctness. One song, the ironically titled "Glad to Be Gay," became the first gay protest song to edge toward the pop mainstream. If Robinson looks like a Jovial, somewhat gone-to-seed professor dressed for an afternoon of tennis, he still seethes with feelings about politics, sex and the state of the world.

The songs on "Love Over Rage" may be more complex and personal than the moralizing of Robinson's early recordings, but they are no less passionate in their search for truth. Nor do Robinson's relationship with a woman and fatherhood (he has a 4-year-old son, Nick) mean that he has renounced his gay identity. "I still find men more sexually attractive than women," he says. "I call that gay. I live with a woman with whom I have a longterm sexual and emotional relationship.

I call that love. The two are not incompatible." "Love Over Rage" might be described as a summing up of Robinson's experiences since becoming a pop flavor-of-the-month in 1977. The opening cut, "Roaring," which remembers "the glorious autumn of our Roaring Days" sounds at first like a rowdy exercise in nostalgia. But on closer listening, the happy days of the late '70s sound far from idyllic. spent 4 hours in a magnetic resonance imaging machine "with its infernal noise and claustrophobia." The examination worked up to his neck, where a small hemorrhage was discovered.

"Apparently, it is the same thing that happened when I fell from the horse in 'Across the Wide he said. "It was not the accident itself, but the shock that followed. The doctors tell me it is a congenital condition that causes too much blood in the spine." In July 1993, Montalban underwent 9 hours of spinal surgery at UCLA Medical Center. He said that he emerged so battered and bruised that his wife, Georgiana, and daughter didn't recognize him. Never during the entire ordeal did Montalban despair "I consider despair a sin," he said.

But he added: "I did have moments in the hospital when I prayed. I thanked God for a good life and said, 'Why don't you take me But then I realized how hard it would be on Georgiana. She is so dedicated to me, and I am so grateful to her for that." Recovery has been slow. He swims in the lap pool outside his hillside home, a Mayan-like monolith with a view to Catalina. He undergoes therapy three times a week.

Jk A ENDS SOON! I I I it 2j MIVIPALOCA JVW- "I HAVENT LAUGHED mmtumt aai MaA 1 im new yohk observer "WflVTiriim! IT'WVt Bargain Show Dally 5:10 8l. Sun, Mon 50 nUiUILIULLLI IbAM. I 5 Stamp gives a I I I 1 II ta. or I meet the person you can't imagine ever not wanting to be with, you have to seize that opportunity eyen if they're the wrong gender. Paradoxically, my life would have been so much simpler if I'd stayed living with a man or stayed in the closet about this and not told anyorw." "irtjRDiE 1.

1 fj" THE Lion king FRI-MON: TUE-THUR: a I Jt i tut "tml Jr. 0- T'TTJIf 1 1 PG 5. fc.wHlimiirTiKiiain crriii'irICMWT FRI-MON: TUE-THUR: 1 CAMP NOWHERE ipg, miDOLBYS1LREOl FRI-MON: 45-5 45-7 45-9 45 TUE-THUR: 3 45-5 45-7 45-9 45 BRUCE WILUS 1 IN COLOR OF NIGHT FRI-MON: 12 05-2 20-4 40-7 00-9 20 TUE-THRU: 2 20-4 iii 1 AAkin pin FRI-THUR 3 -CO-HIT-IN THE ARMY NOW FRI-MON: TUE-THUR: 5 THE LITTLE RASCALS IPCT' LU FRI-THUR 30 CO-HIT LASSIE (pgi FRI-MON: 1 15-4 40-8 10 TUE-THUR: 4 40-8 10 4h THE LION KING PRESENTED IN DOLBY DIGITAL FRI-MON 12 00-2 00-4 00-S 00 00 TUE-THUE. 2 00-4 00-6 00-8 00 SPEED FRI-THUR: 3 00-7 30 CO-HIT BLOWN AWAY FRI-MON 12 50-5 15-9 40 TUE-THUR 5 15-940 SCREEN II km SATSUMMON SPtED MS-4J UNTIL 510 M. Vf HICK 4 74-A I MO By BOB THOMAS The Associated Press THE PAIN is etched on his handsome, leathery face.

He moves slowly, hands gripping a walker, then grimaces as he lbwers himself into a lounging chair. "I feel as if my legs were wrapped in lead," he sighs. Meet Ricardo Montalban, survi-vpr. The 73-year-old actor is not only beating a life-threatening illness, he has embarked on a new television series, "Heaven Help Us," playing an angel, no less. The one-hour syndicated show, produced by Aaron Spelling, stars John Schneider and Melinda Clarke as newlyweds killed in a plane crash.

The couple are required to perform good deeds to earn their angel wings, and Montalban is their guardian angel. The actor is no stranger to pain. In 1949, when he was a young actor at MGM, a horse threw him on a rocky location for the Clark Gable Western "Across the Wide Missouri." A spinal injury left him in constant pain, which he refused to relieve with sedatives. He walked with difficulty, but managed to move fluidly in roles from "Sayon-ara" to his long-running series "Fantasy Island." But one night in June 1993, he suddenly lost feeling in his leg and ENOl lOONI BaBMaJaaMaakiaaiiHairfMaJbMMBMjiaa yf 11 NIGHTLY AT 7: OS a 05 (IMSlODlWl NIOMTLV AT 4 I Bargain Show Dally A Bargain Show Dally 4 50 A Mon. 100 SarSuJonOJJ i Plus WLSd I NATURAL BORN KILLERS Thof 4 45- OO-M VO Sit Sun Mon 15 2 3t4 45-700-920 ii CAMP NO WHERE FrtTu-Thuf Son 4 Mun 124fr 2.5(600-700 COLOR OF NIGHT ir) Nightly 00 III Double Feature LITTLE RASCALS (PQ1 Fn Tu -Tu' 1 30 bat Sun 4 Mod 4 00-7 30 THE MASK (PG 13) Fn 5 4S-lMSt Sun 4 Mon 2 00-5 45-9 1 BLACK BEAUTY i (G) Silt Sim A Mnn 00 ONI all all asm SCREEN I -At NATURAL BORN KILLERS -At 10:1 5- WAGON'S EAST SCREEN II -At CLEAR PRESENT DANGER -At GUMP (PQ13) nDUB oasir mi "A THRILLER THAT AND DELIGHTS!" CHARMS -Bill Dlahl.

ABC RADIO NETWORK "MaCaulay Culkin Steals the Show! Ted Danson is Charming" GeTTINg wiTh SUNDAY TIMES TROUBLE EVEN LABOR DAY SHOWTIMES TROUBLE EVEN 9:00 NATURAL BORN KILLERS iRi (1 45) (4 451 7 40 10 25 NO VIPS UNTIL tit THE CLIENT (P3i3) (1 151 14 151 7 10 9 55 ANDRE (PGi 11 OOl 13 151 5 10 JURASSIC PARK PG13 (1 001 13 451 7 00-9 46 BLANKMAN (PQi3) 8 00 10 OO CORRINA, CORRINA IPG) (12 00) (2 301 5 00 7 30 10 00 NO VIPS UNTIL St HARRISON FORD CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER PG13) (12 301 (3 451 1 00 10 10 liKylliilj ARNOLD SCHWARUM W.tJI TRUE LIES ri II 00) 14 001 7 00 10 00 BKIUOtT FONDA NIC HULAS CAGt IT COULD HAPPEN TO VOU 12 30) (3 001 5 15 7 30 9 45 DOLBY STEREO TtWHAMkSb FORREST CUMP ipg 13 0(Xe1146l(2 40l54M4C DTS 6 TRACK 1 00) 4 00-7 00-10 JO aOCKMO CHAM SEATS MILK MONEY PG131 12 1Sl 2 40' 5 00 7 40 10 10 NO VIPS UNTIL SJ14 JIM CARREY THE MASK (PGtSl 4 dfy" 1 vl tTTiiim DRINK W9MAN iS ciiMiwTiniirm I NIGHTLY AT 7:00 9:25 Bargain Show Dally 4:35 Sat, Sun, Mon 2:10 3:45) 7:00 10:10 9 fin mTirfn V7 Alliance. It 0yS illl JIII VN GOl I.I 111! 17 IL'rjS? (1:45) (4:45) 7:40 10:25 a'ISiH NO VIPS Until 99 Tom HankSis Forrest Gump niamKneimnNUKninnnwri -r i I MM i rxY'-Trr" us.yffiri (1 1 :45) (2:40) 5:40 8:40 111 SiSZ2Ml 111 i- 'l (1 :00) 0:00 DTS 6 Track imwm wmw Rocking Chair 8t Melanie Griffith Ed Harris VP You can't get enough pP? of a good thing. But first you Wv have to find it iii Ll (12:30) 1 bb Htvf Si'wt Soufh 1 "A WONDERFUL MOVIE! One of the best films of the summer. nnTI NOW PLAYING! A iiiiiiliii I (12:15) (2:40) 5:00 7:40 1 0:10 in ow miMHi Wo VIPS until 9M4 ft 32 fn -40l vfnvrn IARGAIN MATINEES SCREEN I KOWI SATSUNKON RASCALS 144-70 ANGflS-M-36 'Corrina, Corrina' is very special." Jrffnr lyrmm. S.SEAK FRETEWS 1 ll)VN 1V H4MO Qorrsna, Xlorrina MAVERIC pp1 "tS" NFW LINE OSLKK -CO-HI T- mm I 12:00 massif30-100 Ai SS Rrvar StrM Soi 4 8o iiiiiiiiiih aaaVa9aVMakaa1(BBaaVl i iuT I I 1 Itjr II-.