Those of you watching your Charter Cablevision cable access channel tonight at 7 (it’s channel 65 or 95, depending on your hook-up) will catch a rerun of last week’s censored edition of “The Gay and Lesbian Newsmagazine,” featuring host Denise Penn talking (what else?) censorship with San Pedro gallery owner Joe Flazh! and artist Suzanne Shifflett.

It was a lively discussion–sparked by the wind-up to last Monday’s taping, when Shifflett, whose portrait exhibition is up now at Flazh!’s Flazh!Alley Studio, brought three examples of her work to show on the “Newsmagazine.”

Two were portraits of shirtless, tattooed men, and the third–the offender–was a portrait of a topless, tattooed woman.

Flazh! says that as they were getting ready to tape, station manager Judy Baker told him that Shifflett’s portrait of the woman wouldn’t meet the station’s decency standards, and they’d have to cover her, er, breasts with Post-Its–despite the fact that the guys were topless, too.

Flazh! and Shifflett didn’t like that idea, so they taped the show with the two portraits of men as illustrations–and left out the third portrait. (You can see it here if you’re 18 or older.)

Penn, the show’s host, says she was out of the room when Flazh! and Baker had their discussion–but she admits to not quite understanding what all the fuss was about.

“Victoria’s Secret ads are a little more risque than some of the art work. I think it’s since the Janet Jackson thing,” Penn says, referencing the unplanned dismantling of the singer’s bustier by Justin Timberlake, which led to the Federal Communications Commission fining Viacom half a million dollars. “I think that scared everybody.”

When I finally reached someone at Charter Cablevision on Monday–producer Ron Petke–he didn’t mention Janet Jackson, just tradition.

“It’s just community standards and guidelines that we’ve been following for about 100 years,” Petke said when questioned on why Baker asked Flazh! and Shifflett to cover the boobies.

“It didn’t sound like that big of a deal,” Petke says. “What, are you scrounging for a story?”

Tags: California, Charter Cablevision, Denise Penn, Federal Communications Commission, Flazh!Alley Studio, Janet Jackson, Joe Flazh, Judy Baker, Justin Timberlake, Long Beach, Ron Petke, San Pedro, Southern California, Suzanne Shifflett, The District Weekly, Theo Douglas, Viacom, “The Gay and Lesbian Newsmagazine”