
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, July 16, 1990                   TAG: 9007160042
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: E5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

THE PEOPLE COLUMN

Joan Rivers apparently did not see anything to laugh about in getting a pistol permit in New York and would not talk about it when she went to pick it up Friday.

Capt. Allan Shulman of the police License Bureau, said that while Rivers was in his office to get the permit he kept expecting her to say something funny but she never did.

While at Police Plaza, Rivers toured the 911 offices, hoping to pick up good stories to pass on to her daughter, Melissa, who is working for the television program, "Rescue, 911."

Rivers last month won her first Emmy Award for best daytime talk show host for her syndicated "The Joan Rivers Show."

\ Edward Albee, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, said new government guidelines on art submitted for funding through the National Endowment for the Arts are preposterous and dangerous.

"We are turning into a passive society that wishes to be entertained, to be taken out of itself, to be fed easy truths," he said. "Simply because you are putting money into the arts doesn't mean that you have the right to diminish the arts."

Bills to continue the NEA are pending in both the House and Senate, and a fight is expected over several proposals to apply provisions restricting federal subsidies from going to art that is deemed obscene, sacrilegious or otherwise offensive.

Albee, winner of several Pulitzer Prizes and author of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" spoke to about 200 people Saturday at Carnegie Mellon University's College of Fine Arts in Pittsburgh after accepting the Carnegie Mellon Commitment to Playwriting Award.

\ David Boren, Democratic senator from Oklahoma, and his cousin, entertainer Hoyt Axton, teamed up for a little musical entertainment at Boren's re-election rally in Seminole, Okla., Saturday.

Axton has written songs such as "I've Never Been To Spain" and "Joy To The World," and appeared in numerous movies including "Gremlins" and "Endangered Species."

Boren and Axton sang "God Bless America," and Axton also sang "Amazing Grace" during the old-fashioned ice cream social.

Boren, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is seeking a third six-year term in the Senate.

by CNB