TTTTT H   H  EEEEE
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  T   H   H  E
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PPPP   OOOO  RRRR  TTTTT L       A   N   N DDDD  I   A   N   N TM
P   P O    O R   R   T   L      A A  NN  N D   D I  A A  NN  N
PPPP  O    O RRRR    T   L     AAAAA N N N D   D I AAAAA N N N
P     O    O R   R   T   L     A   A N  NN D   D I A   A N  NN
P      OOOO  R   R   T   LLLLL A   A N   N DDDD  I A   A N   N

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The Internet's unofficial fanzine for those who want to keep up
with the Hardings

April 11, 1997 Edition - PROBATION EXPIRY SPECIAL!!
(C) 1997 Portland Ice Skating Society
*****************************************************************

FREE AT LAST, FREE AT LAST, FREE AT LAST - TONYA'S PROBATION ENDS
TODAY

As all Tonyaphiles will know, today marks a momentous occasion;
i.e. the expiry of Tonya's probation. This has two important
consequences:

1. She can buy a gun (like any real American). I hope it's a .44
magnum (or even better, Casull 454, which is apparently almost
twice as powerful as a .44, and will not only "make your day",
but probably the rest of your week as well). Let's see some idiot
try to kidnap her when she's got one of those!

(As an aside, hard-core Tonya enthusiasts will know that this
restriction on possessing a gun actually caused a problem during
the filming of her movie "Breakaway". A scene in which Tonya's
character encounters a suspected burglar breaking in (and no, it
was not Nicole Bobek) originally had Tonya confronting the
intruder with a gun. But her over-zealous probation officer who
was on the set at the time gave that the thumbs-down, and it got
re-written to be a butter knife instead!)

2. She can travel anywhere, including overseas, without
restriction. And that means maybe she can travel to remote places
of the globe like New Zealand, South Africa, etc, where people
truly appreciate her skating ability and unique personality, and
don't have so many hangups about her as her countrymen do.

According to her agent, David Hans Schmidt, there is a huge cult
following for Tonya in Japan and Germany. Apparently she's
already appeared on TV in those countries a couple of years ago,
so maybe we'll see a tour of those places soon.


WITT WELCOMES BACK TONYA

In the wake of Tonya's stunning pro debut at Reno in February,
three high profile skaters were asked for their opinions by the
"Extra" TV show.

Scott Hamilton gave a fairly neutral response: "Whatever she does
in her life, I hope she's happy", as did Paul Wylie, who said
"She's a skater - and if it's in her blood, it's in her blood".

Most enthusiastic of all was Katerina Witt who said "You have to
come to the point somewhere where you have to forgive her and
give her a chance".

It's interesting to note that the skater with the most positive
reaction was the only non-American of the lot, which reinforces 
our above comments.


WEB SITE UPDATE

Since our last issue there has been significant progress with the
two Tonya Web sites we have reported on previously.

Jim Maxey has been doing major work on his site in Portland
located at http://www.tonyaharding.com and now has a bulletin
board where people can post messages. It's moderated, so genuine
Tonyaphiles can hang out together without having to put up with
juvenile "Tonya is a slut" type trolls or endless spam inviting
you to "invest" in dodgy chain-letter type schemes or "watch
Chantelle get a good spanking for 99c/minute at hotnymphos.com",
like which pollutes alt.fan.t-h.w.w.w. Just genuine, supportive
pro-Tonya messages many of which are from people who have never
been seen before on that newsgroup or even on rec.sport.skating
.ice.figure. He's even got a movie of Tonya singing (which, if
you've ever heard Tonya singing, will know is best viewed on a PC
WITHOUT a sound card).

Jim hopes to expand his site to include movies of Tonya's skating
routines, which are a must-see for those out there who tuned into
Tonya after the US Fascist Skating Association imposed it's life
ban and have never seen much of her skating. Unfortunately, Jim
has had little luck in locating such footage; he's tried the
local Portland media but they either won't help or want to charge
him ridiculous clearance fees for the use of the material. So if
anybody knows where he can find good quality skating footage of
Tonya that can be either used without charge or for a sensible
fee, tell him about it.

By the way, Jim has revealed that the picture of Tonya skating
that he's got at the top of his page is a fake - it's a computer
generated composite (with Tonya's head stuck on Nicole Bobek's
body, apparently), just like the Jabba the Hutt footage in the
new version of "Star Wars" (er..., on second thoughts, maybe
that's not such a good comparison...).

Meanwhile, Dave in Texas has also been busy on his site, which
can be found at
http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/3388/tonya.html . In addition
to lots of pictures of Tonya, the biggest new development is an
archive of back issues of "The Portlandian". He also has a report
on Tonya's Reno gig and is working on her biography.

Please note that both these sites are porn-free; in other words,
DON'T waste their time or yours by asking for wedding-video jpegs
as you WON'T GET THEM!

In addition, a third Tonya related site has now come to our
attention: "Puppetboy's annex", located at
http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/1711/tonya2.htm has a brief
plea for Tonya to be allowed to skate again. It's not much at
present, but with a bit of encouragement it might get expanded in
the same way as the other two have.


NORWEGIAN TONYA FAN CLUB SET UP

Tormod Holth Larsen, an oil rig worker in Norway, has recently
set up a Tonya Harding Fan Club in that country with his
colleagues. In a message posted on Jim Maxey's bulletin board
described above, he describes how he became interested in Tonya
after seeing her on TV. His club already has 50 members, proving
that Norway, the place that gave us Sonja Henie, can certainly
still appreciate a good skater when they see one. He hopes to
raise money to allow Tonya to come there, and plans to donate any
excess to some suitable charity like a children's hospital, so
that Tonya's name will be connected with something favorable. You
can read more about his plans on Maxey's board (it's message
number 10000041.htm). This is the only Tonya fan club we know of
since the demise of Elaine Stamm's original in Portland in late
'94 - we would love to hear about any others.


SOMETHING SPECIAL FOR TONYAPHILES?

In the wake of the re-release of the abovementioned reconstructed
"Star-Wars", numerous other filmmakers and studios are reputedly
climbing on the bandwagon and planning their own "Special
Editions" of various much loved classics of the past. After all,
why spend $80 million making a new movie when for $10m to $15m
you can give an old favorite a makeover - just scrounge some
footage off the cutting room floor, chuck in a few CG effects and
watch the dough roll in. Already, word is out that Steven
Spielberg is considering a "Jaws" Special Edition, and is even
toying with the idea of doing further enhancements to "Close
Encounters" - which raises an interesting question: In view of
the fact that Spielberg was the one that started the whole idea
of Special Editions in the first place with his 1980 SE of "Close
Encounters" what will the new version be called? The "Special
Special Edition"? Or perhaps he'll have to start borrowing from
the computer industry and call it "Close Encounters v3.0".

Where will this end? Will we see Stanley Kubrick to commence work
on a 30th anniversary Special Edition of "2001: A Space Odyssey",
in which HAL will be brought up to date by fitting him with a
Pentium chip - with the movie now being called "2000.999999999...
a Space Odyssey"..?

All of this raises a very interesting possibility for
Tonyaphiles, i.e., that Penthouse will release a "Special
Edition" of "Tonya and Jeff's Wedding Night". One obvious change
that presents itself could be a computer enhancement of the area
of Tonya's anatomy that she herself had enhanced in real life a
couple of years back.

We here at "The Portlandian" hope that this will not occur. The
so called "Wedding Night Video" should be consigned to the
dustbin of history where it belongs, as it detracts from the
memory of a great skating star and Tonya's performance in it
hardly merits a 6.0 for either "artistic impression" or
"technical merit", so to speak. Indeed, in our opinion, it would
be about as welcome as a Special Edition of "Heaven's Gate"
(either the Cimino film or the cult).

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CONGRATULATIONS TO TONYA ON HER RELEASE FROM PROBATION FROM ALL
HER MANY FANS!!
*****************************************************************

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