GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine

Transcription

March 2009
ISSUE 65
The Only Magazine Dedicated
to Alberta’s GLBT+ Community
FREE
Western Cup 2009
Apollo Friends in Spor
Sportt
Cocktail
Chatter
Bar-havior and
Better Martinis
Martinis
Three Nights of
Gender Bending
Alberta’s Post-Secondary LGBT Student
Organizations Put on a Show
Show
COMMUNITY DIRECTORY • MAP AND EVENTS • TOURISM INFO
>> STARTING ON PAGE 17
GLBT RESOURCE • CALGARY • EDMONTON • ALBERTA
www.gaycalgary.com
2
GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine #65, March 2009
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
5
Boatloads of Beautiful Bears
8
Boeing, Boeing
9
Joni Mitchell’s The Fiddle & The
Drum
Photography
Steve Polyak, Rob Diaz-Marino, and
contributors.
Sexy farce comes to Stage West
Alberta Ballet Delivers an Eye Opening Experience
12 Product Review
Shave the Planet, Luck of the Irish, Zonk Out Earplugs
13 Chelsea Boys
14 Out of Town
Gay Travel Primer on Hawaii
Videography
17 Directory and Events
Printers
23 Buses Are Not Pulpits
Distribution
25 Q Scopes
Steve Polyak, Rob Diaz-Marino
North Hill News/Central Web
Calgary: ........................Gallant Distribution
......................................GayCalgary Staff
Edmonton: .....................Clark’s Distribution
Other: .......................................Canada Post
Legal Council
Courtney Aarbo, Barristers and Solicitors
Sales & General Inquiries
#403, 215 14th Avenue SW
Calgary, AB, Canada T2R 0M2
Office Hours:............. By appointment ONLY
Phone: ................................ (403) 543-6960
Toll Free:............................ 1-888-543-6960
Fax:..................................... (403) 703-0685
E-Mail: [email protected]
This Month's Cover
Connie Lingua (Antonio Bavaro), taken
by Steve Polyak at Buddys Niteclub,
Edmonton. Edited by Rob Diaz-Marino.
PAGE 9
Mercedes Allen, Camper British, Dave
Brousseau, AIDS Calgary, Jason Clevett,
Andrew Collins, James S.M. Demers, Rob
Diaz-Marino, Jack Fertig, Glen Hanson,
Benjamin Hawkcliffe, Joan Hilty, Karen
Hoffman, Evan Kayne, Stephen Lock, Allan
Neuwirth, Felice Newman, Brian Pawlak,
Steve Polyak, Mark Randall, Matt Salton,
Romeo San Vicente, Will Sutherland, Jody
Valley, Jerome Voltero, and the GLBT
Community of Calgary, Edmonton, and
Alberta.
PAGE 8
Writers and Contributors
Publisher’s Column
“Lead with your intuition, Capricorn!”
26 The Lieutenant of Inishmore
Irish Play Kicks Off Bloody Good GZT Season
27 Three Nights of Gender Bending
Alberta’s Post-Secondary LGBT Student Organizations Put on a Show
28 Deep Inside Hollywood
New Projects for Johnny Knoxville
29 Camp fYrefly Passes Another
Milestone
PAGE 26
Publisher: ................................ Steve Polyak
Editor:............................... Rob Diaz-Marino
Graphic Design: ................ Rob Diaz-Marino
Sales: ....................................... Steve Polyak
29 Cocktail Chatter
Bar-havior and Better Martinis
Continued on Next Page ❯❯
Apollo Friends in Sport
31 Pirates of the North Saskatchewan II
All Aboard for Pirate Adventure at Jubilations
www.gaycalgary.com
PAGE 30
30 Western Cup 2009
Continued on Next Page f
3
Table of Contents
f Continued From Previous Page
Proud members of:
32 Letters to the Editor
32 Do You Have What it Takes?
33 Dear Jody
PAGE 42
Daughter Bashes Gays, Embarrassed Over Finances
34 The Rocky Horror Show
Odd-Lot Theatre Co. brings Sweet Transvestite to Edmonton
35 A Couple of Guys
36 Bitter Girl
37 The BUTT Magazine Controversy
American Apparel Continues to Carry Gay Magazine
38 Looking back at Queer as Folk
PAGE 43
Producer & Writer Reflects on Influential Gay Show
39 Dykes to Watch Out For
The Essential Alison Bechdel
40 A History of Gender Variance in
Expression and Identity
Part 2: The Rise of Hatred (the Middle Ages)
42 Gay Tech
RSS Feeds for News, Media and More
PAGE 52
43 Fundraising Photos
April 2009
Print Deadlines
Ad Booking
Wednesday, March 25th, 2008
Ad Submission
Friday, March 27th, 2009
46 St Patrick’s Day Irish Auction
Annual Charity Auction Benefitting Beswick House
48 Classified Ads
51 How Green was my Rental?
Queer DVDs worth renting for St. Patty’s Day
52 Music Review
Annie Lennox, Rihanna, Maroon 5
56 Queer Eye - Community Events
In Circulation
Tuesday, April 2nd, 2009
Please contact us immediately if you think
you may have missed the booking or
submission deadline.
4
❮❮ Continued from Previous Page
Magazine
Print Circulation: ................. ~10,000 copies
Pickup Density: ...................~3 readers/copy
Online Circulation: ............ ~60,000 readers
Total Readership: .............. ~90,000 readers
Frequency: ................................Every Month
Proof of monthly figures can be requested.
Distribution Locations
Alberta: ..................... ~300 Drop-off Points
Please call us if your establishment would
like to become a distribution point.
History
Originally established in January 1992 as
Men for Men BBS by MFM Communications.
Name changed to GayCalgary.com in 1998.
Independent company as of January 2004.
First edition of GayCalgary.com Magazine
published November 2003. Name adjusted
in November 2006 to GayCalgary and
Edmonton Magazine.
Disclaimer and Copyright
Opinions expressed in this magazine
are specific to the author, and do not
necessarily reflect those of GayCalgary staff
and contributors.
Those involved in the making of this
publication, whether advertisers,
contributors, or the subjects of articles
or photographs, are not necessarily gay,
lesbian, bisexual, or trans. GayCalgary
also includes straight allies and those who
are gay friendly.
No part of this publication may be
reprinted or modified without the
expressed written permission of the editor
or publisher.
Copyright 2009. All rights reserved.
GayCalgary is a registered trademark.
Editorial
Boatloads of Beautiful Bears
Publisher’s Column
By Rob Diaz-Marino, MSc.
Earlier this month we took the opportunity to preview the new Strathmore location for the ARGRA
Rodeo, and even though we were knee-deep in snow
while touring the grounds, we were surely impressed.
The potential that this new setting offers for the upcoming
rodeo is simply overwhelming. Imagine a full-sized, shaded
grandstand, comparable to what we have at the Calgary
Stampede; a larger central arena with infield seating adjoining a full-fledged race track; a larger trailer park, and overflow that’s probably 4 to 6 times larger than what we’re used
to from previous years; a portable outdoor stage; admission
wickets and other small buildings for selling food and beverages. Furthermore, although the property nice and remote
on the edge of town, it is adjacent to a large recreation centre
with a swimming pool and other facilities, and only a short
drive away from hotels, grocery stores, and bars.
We are extremely excited over this, and also to hear that
ARGRA is moving ahead with our suggestion of a community
Midway where groups can set up carnival games and contests to raise money. I often avoid the Midway games at the
Calgary Stampede because I know they’re wallet-wipers, but
if it’s going to support our community groups then it doesn’t
seem like such a waste.
Near the end of February, Steve and I both went up to Edmonton to attend the much anticipated BEEF Bear Bash Bar
Night. I know, the two of us in the same city on a weekend,
what a concept! To be perfectly honest, I had heard so many
people talking about it at the phenomenally well attended
Eagle Anniversary Party the week prior that I knew it was
going to be a roaring success…pardon the pun.
In fact, it was packed when we arrived at 10pm, and
people told us it had been that way since 9! It was easy to
feel at home with a strong attendance from Calgary, but we
also got word that there were attendees from many other
cities, including Vancouver! That bears would come from far
and wide for this event was truly impressive – and I’m sure
they weren’t at all disappointed.
ful” to get noticed – the shy and modest men are often the
most adorable. There’s a lot of socializing, accompanied by
big hugs, fur play, and occasionally naughty groping. Basically, guys get to be themselves and celebrate their sexy
nature just the way they are – fuck the shallow pretention,
and the twink body type that gay men are told to envy. Steve
and I felt at home – we were definitely proud to have sponsored this event.
This Month
Where are all the Lesbians? For the past couple of years
we have affectionately termed our March edition as “Power
Lesbian Month”, with our Jann Arden and Lily Tomlin cover
in 2007, and the spunky hockey player in 2008. Unfortunately with the Vagina Monologues not running this year, it’s
taken the wind out of the Power Lesbian sails. Sadly, after
producing the Vagina Monologues for the past 10 years solid,
Marsha needed to take a break. But don’t worry girls; we’ll
get you an exciting cover (or more) for another month.
Some points of interest:
• Congratulations to Woody’s Pub in Edmonton, which is
celebrating its 7th anniversary this month!
• The SHARP Foundation is holding their 4th annual Taste
for Life at Gypsy Bistro and Wine Bar, right quick on March
10th. Phone in your booking for the 5:30 or 7:30 dinner
service. Refer to their ad for more details.
• There are THREE College Gender-Bender-style events
happening this month, put on by Queers on Campus at the
University of Calgary, the Diversity Centre at Mount Royal
College, and OUTreach at the University of Alberta. For
details, refer to the article on page 27.
• The 4th Annual St. Patricks Day Irish Auction is happening on March 14th down at the Texas Lounge. Read the
article on page 46.
• The Mr. Rubber Contest is happening on April 3rd and
4th. Check our events calendar or the Calgary Eagle website
for further details as they become available.
A straight friend of mine asked “What happens at a BearBash, anyway?” Well let’s see…guys take their shirts off to
parade around as much fur as possible; on a night like this,
anything waxed is a strike against you. Beefy bodies and big
bellies are revered, though muscles on a stocky frame are
just as good. You don’t have to be young, loud, or “beauti-
5
Editorial
• Apollo Western Cup is coming up in early April. Read
the article on page 30 for more info.
• April is going to be crazy! The week after Western Cup is
the start of the ISCCA’s Coronation Week, going from Tuesday through to Sunday.
For more event information, visit our online events calendar: www.gaycalgary.com/events
Reader Survey 2009
In my infinite wisdom, to try and prevent multiple submissions by the same person in our 2009 reader survey I
programmed the form to reject duplicate phone numbers.
Of course, when it comes to couples that live together in
the same household, this proved to be problematic. Unfortunately, nobody said anything until we were a few days
away from the survey deadline. Although we still got a great
response in time for February 25th, to be fair to those who
couldn’t fill out the 2009 Reader Survey due to our mix-up,
we’ve lifted the restriction in our survey form and extended
the deadline until March 25th. Thus, the Prize draws will
also be postponed until shortly after this cut-off date – however as a thank-you to those who did persist to submit their
surveys before February 25th, the 2nd and 3rd place prizes
will be drawn for that pool only. The grand prize, however, is
anybody’s game!
Article Shuffle
Although we’ve left the Reader Survey open for another
month, we’ve already seen some pretty clear trends in the
way our readers are voting. Taking into consideration how
well our existing articles are read, and what new article ideas
were popular, we’ve already started to bring on new types of
articles for this edition. Of course we are limited to what is
available to us, and some article ideas hadn’t even occurred
to us when offering the possibilities in our Reader Survey.
However we hope you like the new selection that we’ve added
to our already broad range.
New this month are:
• Dear Jody - An advice column to pick up the reigns in
Kevin Alderson’s absence (he decided to retire his regular
Queer Quest column), and in a way revive the concept of
our long retired “Ask Nina” column. Jody Valley writes from
12 years of experience as a clinical social worker and GLBT
counselor.
• Cocktales Chatter – It’s a jungle out there in the bar
scene, so this fun article covers all sorts of bar-related topics
to untangle you from the vines.
• Gay Tech – A home brewed Technology column written
from a GLBT perspective to help demystify, for the average
person, the things us tech geeks take for granted. Steve and
I draw from more than 30 years of combined professional
computer experience, and we get asked enough about computer problems as it is. At the very least, this article should
save us from repeating ourselves!
Note that for lack of space, the monthly Adult Film Review
and Whole Lesbian Sex articles will not be appearing this
month, however we intend to have them back again for
April. I know it looks like an odd coincidence that both sex
columns are absent, but don’t worry, we’re not succumbing
to censorship!
For those who usually pass over Mercedes’ monthly Trans6
Identity column, I strongly encourage you to read the 6 part
series she is currently running because it is highly relevant
to everyone. I have always felt that one of the most crippling
disadvantages to the GLBT community is the sense that we
have no history, so Mercedes’ past two articles have been a
major eye-opener for me. If you missed last month’s article,
then dig up your old copy or read it online. February’s
article may be a little long, but it goes to show what a huge
amount of information there is about GLBT people in ancient
times. This month’s is about Medieval times, and gives an
enlightening explanation about how and why GLBT behaviour first became unacceptable in society – not because there
was something fundamentally wrong with it, but because
it threatened the rising patriarchy. Go on, give it a read on
page 40.
GayCalgary Website Rings
Last month we launched a new feature on the GayCalgary.
com website to help unify Alberta-based GLBT websites in
a new way. Though we have a pretty thorough collection of
sites in our Online Directory, it doesn’t afford visitors the
capability of easily touring through Alberta’s online GLBT
presence.
A website ring allows you to do just this – to sequentially
flip through a connected collection of websites. The GayCalgary.com website alone gets close to 2000 visitors in a day,
so members can all benefit from the shared traffic that a
website ring generates.
If you run or maintain a GLBT-related website, you can
easily join one of our website rings by signing up at: http://
www.gaycalgary.com/webring. Once you have placed the
code fragment on your website to generate the Website Ring
Navigation Panel, we will activate your membership.
Currently we are only offering the “Alberta GLBT Websites”
ring, but we have the capability of adding more as the need
arises. Note that this is a home-grown solution – no thirdparties are used to provide our Website Rings service.
Another new feature that we added to the website this
month are RSS feeds. If you have no clue what an RSS feed
is, have no fear – it is the topic of our premiere Gay Tech
column on page 42.
We want to hear what YOU have to say about the topics in this article, and
any other articles in GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine. Visit our chat
forums at www.gaycalgary.com/forum and write your heart out! Or write
us a letter to the publisher by post or by E-mailing publisher@gaycalgary.
com, and we may publish or respond to it in the magazine!
7
Theatre Review
Boeing, Boeing
Sexy farce comes to Stage West
By Jason Clevett
Stage West’s current production, Boeing Boeing running until April 19th will fall into the “Love it or hate
it” category; if you enjoy over the top comical farce,
you will love the show. If that is not your cup of
tea, you may hate it. As is often the case with farce,
there isn’t really an in-between.
That is not a knock on the show or its cast. While the billing
lists Peter Scolari as the star, the show is really an ensemble,
and Stage West has assembled some of Calgary’s finest performers for it. In particular Elinor Holt, who is easily one of
my favorite actresses in the city, steals each and every scene
she plays - in this case, as Bertha the housekeeper. Scolari
admitted that there are times he cannot look at Holt during
the show because she is so funny. Carrie Schiffler, Chantal
Perron and Nicole Zylstra all throw a ton of energy and charm
into their roles as the three airhostess girlfriends of Bernard
(Martin Evans).
The story of Boeing Boeing centers on Robert (Scolari) who
visits his friend Bernard at his Paris flat. Bernard tells Robert
that he, in fact, has multiple relationships that he juggles. Everything goes to hell when all three of his girlfriends arrive at
the same time, leaving Robert to try and help his friend juggle
things. Comedy ensues.
“There are four versions of this show. This show was written
in French by an Italian, translated in 1962 for London, then
revised for Broadway in 1965. Then revived thirty years later,”
Scolari explained. “I was in this [show] in Toronto. They called
me about doing this version, which is a lot more challenging
with wit and more dialogue.”
Scolari is no stranger to Calgary, where he lived for three
years shooting the TV series Honey, I Shrunk The Kids.
“I am glad to be here, my son was born here. For someone out of New York City it is refreshing to be around people
where, if you look them in the eye, somebody is home.”
Scolari’s face is instantly recognizable from the 300+ TV
and film appearances he has made, including Newhart and
teaming with Tom Hanks in the 80’s comedy Bosom Buddies.
Working on stage is a very different experience, he says.
“Stage work is very personal. If you have a great show, ten
minutes after I am thinking what I can do better. When you
film something it is gone, preserved, captured and not yours
anymore. I am lucky in that I have worked with great material
and directors so there isn’t much I want back. When you want
something back from a stage
performance you look for it
the next night. “
The role of Robert is very
physical, bringing about memories for me of John Ritter in
Three’s Company. Scolari falls
over furniture, trips, and runs
around like a madman. Not an easy task for a 53 year old.
”By and large I have had enough time to get used to the
mechanics of what I am doing, so I know where my safety is.
In ten previews I have a couple of nicks and bruised my ankle
once. I have been truly looked after in this show by (director)
Marty Fishman. Marty is an exceptional director and he got to
know me very fast. There is a lot to what I am doing so I am
not just falling all over the stage for no reason.”
While Scolari is listed as the headliner on the playbill, he
made it clear that Boeng Boeng is a group effort.
“I never had the mindset about [being a] celebrity. It gave
me opportunities in New York and to travel and work but I
was warned very early on never to buy my own hype. I am not
saying I didn’t for a year or two and think I was entitled, but
in this life you are not entitled to anything. I have been taught
and mentored by people and hold to being a straight up guy,
and the rest I can’t be bothered with. The billboard getting
asses in the seats, I am all for it. I am on a team and each
one of the cast is very gifted. We all feel that way. I would be
embarrassed to be the star in energy or needing more attention or to be treated differently. It happens and I do everything
I can to squash that.”
Of course, we had to ask Scolari about his stint as Henry
Desmond on Bosom Buddies. The show featured Scolari and
Tom Hanks as bachelors who have to pretend to be women
in order to get an apartment they could afford. While not gay,
seeing men in drag on network television was unheard of in
1980.
“We were always so upset because we took such a beating in TV guide. ‘The boys are good but the show is stupid.’
Maybe it was stupid at times, but it was a half hour sitcom.
About a year after us doing the show, Tootsie came out as a
film and was universally adored, and we thought it was just
as silly a show, even though it was a wonderful movie,” he
recalled. “There are a few episodes we were very proud of. The
drag thing was disconcerting, we thought it was just part of
Continued on Page 50 f
8
Theatre Review
Joni Mitchell’s The Fiddle & The Drum
Alberta Ballet Delivers an Eye Opening Experience
By Evan Kayne
Growing up a member of Generation
X, for the most part
I had an ambivalent
relationship with
Joni Mitchell’s music - except that I
twitched every time
I heard the line
from Woodstock:
“half a million
strong”. Annoyed
with the Boomer
Generation’s propensity to exaggerate their achievements I always
sung under my
the ostrich and
choosing not to see
the reality of it all,”
says Mitchell. “We
are on this spaceship that is accelerating, the fuselage
is coming apart and
our leaders can only
think of going even
faster.”
breath “400,000 strong”.
The production – a bare stage
with only a center
screen projection for
Mitchell’s images,
has primarily two
colour schemes –
pink and green; odd
colours for death
and destruction,
especially given that
green sometimes is the colour for hope. This colour scheme is
reflected in the dancers’ basic outfits of green – accentuated
with a red skirt for the song Ethiopia.
But in the time from age 20-40, I’ve seen my own share of
hopes, dreams, disillusionment and disappointment - which
has humbled and educated me. Seven years ago, a Boomer
friend re-introduced me to Joni Mitchell and I realized youth
and stupidity had blinded me to an exceptional songwriter
whose poetry hit on emotions and thoughts relevant to ALL
generations.
This semi-abstract narrative ballet, danced in neo-classical style, presented several of Joni Mitchell’s songs, from Sex
Kills, Slouching Towards Bethlehem and of course, Woodstock.
But it was some of Mitchell’s songs I’d not heard before which
struck me: Shine; a clear and poignant lullaby no child should
have to hear, and from the album “Dog Eat Dog” the song The
Three Great Stimulants.
After debuting in February 2007, Joni Mitchell’s The Fiddle
and The Drum returned to both Jubilee Auditoriums this past
month with four new songs. I missed it the first time around,
but since its original premiere two years ago, this amazing collaboration between Mitchell and Alberta Ballet Artistic Director Jean Grand-Maître
has grown into a critically acclaimed ballet
that audiences worldwide have praised.
The ballet addresses
Ms. Mitchell’s preoccupations of war and
environmental neglect,
projecting visual imagery from the artist Joni
onstage while dancers
interpret the emotions
from the singer/songwriter Joni.
The whole of the work itself grabs you; all elements of
movement, imagery, and sound unify and give full weight to
the words and emotions of Joni’s songs, especially given the
weighty subject matter. Whether this work inspires some
of the public towards action is beyond me to say; even if it
inspires individuals towards action I can’t know. What I do
know is that once again, my eyes have been opened wider to
an amazing artist.
“Some people tell me
that I am a pessimist,
but I see myself as a
realist. There are too
many public individuals out there playing
9
10
11
Product Review
Product Review
Shave the Planet, Luck of the Irish, Zonk Out Earplugs
By Jerome Voltero
Shave the Planet from LUSH
Shave the cheerleader, shave
the world? Okay, that makes no
sense (unless Marni Gras were to
become their new spokesperson),
but Lush’s latest gift bundle Shave
the Planet certainly does.
Shave the Planet is a quartet of
LUSH products to scrub up your
man: Shave the Planet shaving
cream for super smooth shaves,
Cosmetic Lad moisturizer to soothe
sensitive faces, Bamboo soap to
tone and leave skin smelling like
the rainforest, plus a Business
Time massage bar to get him in the
mood to get busy. The package is
wrapped with a fun comic strip,
and makes a great gift for the superhero in your life.
My partner and I took the opportunity to try out these products
ourselves.
I’m not quite sure what a rainforest smells like, but I have to say
the Bamboo soap does have a nice,
masculine scent to it – nothing
flowery or sweet, but rather earthy
and even a little musky. The scent
isn’t terribly strong, so I doubt it
would irritate anyone with sensitive skin.
The shaving cream is not quite
what you would expect – it doesn’t
lather whatsoever, and in fact, the
label states that it’s not supposed
to. This comes in handy if you are
maintaining a finely sculpted beard
because you can see your face
perfectly where the cream has been
applied, so you know exactly where
touch-ups are needed. Because of the slightly waxy consistency of this cream, you need to be mindful to use warm to hot
water otherwise removing it from your shaver (and afterwards,
from your face) gets a bit difficult.
Afterwards we applied the moisturizer - not that our faces
were feeling any sort of razor burn thanks to the shaving
cream. We weren’t exactly sure if it is intended to replace aftershave, but the soft, cool cream felt a good deal more pleasant than the usual sting.
The Business Time massage bar was probably the most
interesting of the collection of products. In the bag it felt solid
like a bar of soap, but the moment it came into contact with
our hands, the surface began to melt like butter. You are then
left with slippery oil with the smell of rose, fennel and lavender
that makes for a pleasurable massage that moisturized your
skin. Depending how much gets slathered onto you, you may
need a shower before getting back into your day-clothes – I’m
not quite sure how fabric friendly the massage oil might be.
Or, you may simply want to save it strictly for bed time...
Shave the Planet Gift goes for $29.95 at a LUSH store near
you. For more information, visit www.lush.ca.
Luck of the Irish Bath Bomb from LUSH
We also got to preview the
limited edition Luck of the Irish
Bath Bomb, available from LUSH
this month in anticipation of St.
Patrick’s Day. The label reads, “A
refreshing bath for the morning
after a pint or two of Guinness.
Drop quietly into a soothing, warm
bath. Lie in the water until you
feel better (but get out before you
shrivel up like a prune).”
The product is a green brick
about the size of your hand, and formed in the shape of a
four-leaf clover. When dropped into bathwater, it erupts into
fizz and dissolves in about a minute and a half, leaving the
bathwater a vibrant green. Don’t worry, you won’t look like a
Leprechaun after getting out; the green color comes from the
skin-nourishing avocado and it won’t stain.
Part of the fun is the invigorating scent of lemongrass, bergamot and rosewood. It is perfect to prepare you for night of
dancing the Irish Jig.
Luck of the Irish Bath Bomb goes for $7.95 at a LUSH store
near you.
Zonk Out Earplugs from DAP World Inc.
Zonk Out is a brand new
premium ear plug designed
to help men get much needed
sleep in spite of work, stress,
and life changes. I’m not
quite sure what differs between a men’s earplug and a
women’s earplug aside from
marketing – in fact I’m pretty
sure they are just as effective
for the working woman too.
“Lack of sleep can lead
to premature aging, weight
gain, negative effects on mood and one’s sex life,” says Dr.
Marc Darrow, assistant clinical professor at UCLA School of
Medicine. “Hormones produced during sleep are needed for all
body functions – immune, cognitive and metabolic functions
and libido, our sex drive.”
Douglas Pick, President of DAP World Inc., says, “By using
Zonk Out, men will develop good sleeping patterns without the
12
13
Out of Town
Gay Travel Primer on Hawaii
Diamond Head at Waikiki (Photo by Andrew Collins)
By Andrew Collins
A trip to Hawaii requires a greater investment of
time and money than to just about any other U.S.
destination, but when planned carefully, the rewards are unrivaled. The 50th state lies about 2,500
miles from Southern California, its nearest major
land mass. The flora, fauna, and natural beauty of
this rugged archipelago are unique in the Western
Hemisphere, and each of the four major islands that
make up the Hawaiian chain varies tremendously in
terrain, diversions, and personality. Whereas most
mainland destinations can be enjoyed over a long
weekend, Hawaii is best explored over at least a
week two if you can possibly manage it.
The creature least likely to enjoy a visit to Hawaii is the gay
single traveler with high expectations of finding romance (the
gay single traveler with low expectations of finding romance
may have a terrific time, however). While hooking up here
isn’t unheard of, it tends to happen more by accident than by
design. Honolulu (and its resort community Waikiki), may buzz
with commerce, shopping, dining, and other big-city diversions,
but it has only a smattering of gay bars. Waikiki has a handful
of gay bars, but overall the GLBT nightlife scene here is far mellower than in most cities this size. The island of Hawaii (or Big
Island) has a small gay bar.
Hawaii is most definitely a destination geared toward couples, so romantics should plan to bring along their own lover.
14
Oahu located in the state’s capital Honolulu, is home to
about 900,000 people (70 percent of the state’s population).
Many visitors base themselves here because of the plethora of
high-rise beachside hotels in Waikiki, the dazzling variety of
restaurants and shops, the ease of getting around without a
car, and the presence of Hawaii’s major international airport.
Waikiki has also enjoyed a dramatic makeover during the past
decade, but it’s still a densely developed neighborhood that
lacks the elbow room and mellow vibe common on neighbor islands. Most of the big beachside hotels have undergone impressive renovations of late, greatly increasingly the quality of accommodations. But Waikiki still has a number of rather bland
high-rise properties, and if you visit only this stretch of (albeit
beautiful) sand, you won’t really come away with a particularly
rich sense of the state of Hawaii.
The ideal time to see Oahu is during the first few days of
your visit, as Waikiki is walkable and downtown Honolulu offers the kinds of cultural attractions Iolani Palace, Chinatown,
Doris Duke’s Shangri La Foundation for Islamic Art, the Bishop
Museum you might be most in the mood to appreciate having
just arrived from the mainland (once you experience the more
pristine and peaceful neighbor islands, you’ll probably have
considerably less interest in urban diversions). No visit to Oahu
is complete without a drive around the island’s splendid Windward Coast and North Shore, which can be managed easily in
a day (the only day you might consider renting a car, which is
unnecessary unless you plan to leave Honolulu and Waikiki).
The island of Hawaii (known most commonly as “the Big
Island”) is about twice the size of the other islands combined.
There’s considerable resort development along the western
(Kohala) coastline, distinctive for its arid and beautifully deso-
Travel
late terrain, characterized by massive black fields of lava rock.
Ideally, you should try to spend at least three days on the Big
Island, one to drive to the verdant tropical eastern coast, which
is anchored by the small, historic city of Hilo. Dedicate another
day to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, which comprises two
active (and occasionally flowing) volcanoes and countless trails
and campsites. And spend your final day driving north into the
upcountry ranching community of Waimea, and beyond that to
the breathtakingly rugged Hamakua Coast.
In terms of scenery, the one Hawaiian island that comes
closest to living up to the expectations of many first-time visitors is Kauai, a relatively small but magnificently lush isle
of rainforests, towering seaside cliffs, and secluded beaches.
Hikers flock to Na Pali Coast State Park, which is on the remote
northwestern tip of the island, just beyond the picturesque
village of Hanalei (which has been the setting for such films as
South Pacific, Indiana Jones and Jurassic Park.
The eastern side is dominated by the waterfalls of the Wailua
River Valley (home to several gay-friendly B&Bs), and the
southern side by Poipu’s beaches and grand resorts. Kauai
remains largely unspoiled and slow-paced, an ideal spot for
devotees of the outdoors; loyal admirers often vacation here
exclusively and skip the other islands.
One island virtually any traveler could encamp happily
on for a full week or more is diverse and dramatic Maui, the
second-most populated and developed of Hawaii’s islands.
Longtime visitors fret that the rate at which tourism has
boomed here has diminished Maui’s appeal, but a quick glance
at Waikiki should convince anybody that development could be
far more intense. Maui’s resorts are sophisticated and relatively
new (most built over the past two to three decades), and fine
restaurants and shops abound along the west coast, which
is also where you’ll find the best and sunniest beaches. The
island’s must-do activities are a drive to the 10,023 foot Mt. Haleakala, a dormant volcano whose peak offers unrivaled views
of the Pacific Ocean; and an all-day drive to the sleepy village of
Hana, set in the richly verdant southeast side of Maui.
Great Hawaiian Sleeps
Hawaii is rife with gay-friendly accommodations, from luxurious full-service resorts to modest upcountry B&Bs. Distinguishing the duds from the winners can take a bit of research,
so spend a little time perusing both gay and mainstream books
and websites before investing time and money into your accommodations. Determine how much you’re willing to spend, the
intimacy and clientele you seek, and the setting you desire. And
remember that many Hawaiian hotels and inns require a significant portion of the payment up front, so avoid committing to
a place you haven’t heard good things about from at least three
reliable sources the differences between dreamy and dreary
can be extreme among Hawaiian hotels.
which consists of spacious rooms set within secluded three
and four-unit clusters facing either the ocean or golf courses.
Private entrances, expansive lanais, a state-of-the-art health
club and spa, and parklike grounds set this compound apart
from the competition.
Four Seasons, Maui. A stunning U-shape hotel with an
incredible collection of local, contemporary art, a fantastic spa
(treatments can be enjoyed in open-air hales by the ocean),
three superb restaurants, and the most attuned and solicitous
staff in all of Hawaii make this the ultimate luxe getaway.
Grand Hyatt, Kauai. Built with native Hawaiian materials and designs and furnished with a fascinating collection of
native art and antiquities, this elegant, gay-friendly resort is
head-and-shoulders above the rest on Kuaui. The setting at
Kauai’s fancy Poipu Resort incorporates 5 acres of swimming
lagoons, a huge fitness center and spa, and a multitude of fine
restaurants.
Hale Ohia Cottages, Big Island. This airy and cheerfully furnished seven room complex is nestled amid pine trees and ferns
in the shadows of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park it’s one of
the better values on the Big Island. The elegant cottages and
suites sleep from two to five persons and some have kitchen
facilities.
Horizon Guest House, Big Island. This super luxurious
guest house offers amenities and furnishings on par with any of
Hawaii’s top resorts but with the intimacy and seclusion of your
own private ranch. Each of the four units afford unparalleled
ocean views, as does the in-ground infinity pool and sweeping
grounds on a 40 acre mountainside high above the Pacific.
JW Marriott Ihilani, Oahu. One of the only resorts on the
island that’s removed from the busy Waikiki scene, the handsomely appointed Ihilani sits along the sun-kissed west coast,
affording guests incredible sunsets. Rooms are swanky and
contemporary.
If you’re planning to visit all four islands, you might consider
staying with Hawaii’s gay-friendly Outrigger Hotels chain,
which has about 25 hotels and condos throughout the state,
most in Waikiki (the beachfront Reef and Waikiki properties are
the best on Oahu, and the Outrigger
Aina Nalu on Maui is also a standout). With one call to Outrigger’s central reservation service, you can book
comfortable and moderately priced
accommodations across the state of
Hawaii.
Andrew Collins is the author of Fodor’s
Gay Guide to the USA and eight additional
travel guides.
There are dozens of fine properties across the archipelago,
but here are a handful of the best:
Embassy Suites Waikiki, Oahu. This well-run, twin-tower,
all-suites property is across the street from one of the prettiest
stretches of beach on Waikiki. Rooms are spacious and reasonably priced, and many upscale shops and eateries are within a
quick stroll.
Fairmont Kea Lani, Maui. Accommodations at this Moorishinspired hotel at the posh Wailea Resort are among the largest
and most beautiful in Hawaii, each with about 1,000 square
feet of living space, Italian marble baths, kitchen facilities,
high-end entertainment centers, and room for two couples.
Four Seasons Hualalai, Big Island. There are deluxe resort
hotels in Hawaii, and then there’s the Four Seasons Hualani,
The Little Black Book
Embassy Suites Waikiki (808-921-2345, www.embassysuites.
com). Fairmont Kea Lani (808-875 4100 or 866-540-4456, www.
fairmont.com/kealani). Four Seasons Hualalai (808-325 8000 or 800
332 3442, www.fourseasons.com/hualalai). Four Seasons Maui (808874-8000, www.fourseasons.com/maui). Grand Hyatt Kauai (808742-1234, www.kuai.hyatt.com). Hale Ohia Cottages (808-967 7986
or 800 455 3803, www.haleohia.com). Hawaii Convention & Visitors
Bureau (800-GO-HAWAII, www.gohawaii.com). Horizon Guest House
(808-328 2540 or 888-328-8301, www.horizonguesthouse.com).
JW Marriott Ihilani Resort (808-679-0079 or 800-626-4446, www.
marriott.com). Outrigger Hotels and Resorts (866-956-4262, www.
outrigger.com).
15
16
Directory and Events
http://www.twistedelement.ca
Dance Club and Lounge.
Legend
Our Magazine Available Here --------------- ✰
Wheelchair Accessible Venue -----------------
CALGARY
Bars and Clubs
3 Backlot ---------------------------------
✰
209 - 10th Ave SW
℡ (403) 265-5211
Open 7 days a week, 4pm-close
4 Calgary Eagle Inc. --------------------- ✰
424a - 8th Ave SE
℡ (403) 263-5847
http://www.calgaryeagle.com
Open Wed-Sun, 5pm-close
Leather/Denim/Fetish bar.
55 Marquee Room --------------------------- ✰
612 - 8th Avenue SW
http://www.marqueeroom.com
Alternative night every Wednesday.
9 MPs (Money Pennies) ----------------- ✰
1742 - 10th Ave SW
℡ (403) 263-7411
http://www.money-pennies.com
Closed Mondays.
Bar and restaurant.
6 Texas Lounge ----------------------------- ✰
308 - 17 Ave SW
℡ (403) 229-0911
http://www.goliaths.ca
Open 7 days a week, 11am-close
33 Twisted Element
1006 - 11th Ave SW
℡ (403) 802-0230
Bathhouses/Saunas
6 Goliath’s ---------------------------------- ✰
308 - 17 Ave SW
℡ (403) 229-0911
http://www.goliaths.ca
Open 7 days a week, 24 hours a day
Community Groups
2 Aids Calgary ---------------------------
110, 1603 10th Avenue SW
℡ (403) 508-2500
[email protected]
http://www.aidscalgary.org
• Community Forum
MacEwan Conference and Events Centre
2500 University Drive NW
Tues, Mar 17th, 9am-12:30pm
HIV, Disclosure and the Law.
Alberta Society for Kink
℡ (403) 398-9968
[email protected]
ca.groups.yahoo.com/
group.albertasocietyforkink
Meet and Greets: Mondays, 7pm-9:30pm
• Kinky Flea Market
Forest Heights Community Centre
4909 Forego Ave SE
℡ Info: (403) 398-9968
Sat. April 4th, 12pm-5pm
Admission: $3.00
✰
Apollo Calgary Friends in Sports
http://www.apollocalgary.com
Apollo Friends In Sports is a volunteer-operated,
non-profit organization serving primarily members
of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgendered
communities but open to members of all
communities. We currently have more than 400
members and are growing fast! The primary focus
of Apollo is to provide our membership with well
organized and fun sporting events and other
activities to allow them to participate and interact in
a positive social framework.
• Badminton (Absolutely Smashing)
St. Martha School (6020 4th Avenue NE)
Wednesdays, 7pm-9pm
Oct 8 to Dec 10, Jan 7 to Apr 1.
Fees Per session: $4 for Apollo member, $5 for nonmembers. Season’s pass $75.
• Bowling (Rainbow Riders League)
Let’s 10 Pin Bowlerama, 2916 - 5 Ave NE
Wednesdays, 7pm, until March 4th
COST: Nightly - $17.00/night ($12.50 for lineage;
$4.50 in prize money) and shoe rental is $2.50.
• Curling
North Hill Curling Club (1201 - 2 Street NW)
Saturdays: 2:20pm and 4:30pm
Season starts October 18, 2008
• Golf
[email protected]
• Lawn Bowling
[email protected].
• Outdoor Pursuits
If it’s done outdoors, we do it! This winter we
will be downhill and crosscountry skiing, skating
and snowshoeing and a whole bunch more. If
you’re interested in any of these or something
else completely, get in touch with us. All events
are organized by the members so if you’re tired
of playing alone outdoors and want to meet other
outdoorsy people, go to myapollo.org to create a
profile and get added to the mailing list.
• Running (Calgary Frontrunners)
Coffee Junkies, 7th Street and 1st Ave SW
℡ Tim (403) 660-6125
[email protected]
Saturdays at 9am
Distance varies. 8km-15km. Runners from 6
minute/mile to 9+ minute miles. During the
summer we attempt to have evening runs during
the week.
• Slow Pitch
Summer sport - not currently active.
• Tennis
Summer sport - not currently active.
• Volleyball (Intermediate/Competitive)
YWCA, 320 - 5th Avenue SE
www.apollocalgary.com/apollo/volleyball
Every Sunday, 4:15pm-6:30pm, until April 5th
This is for seasoned players. You can sign up for the
season or drop-in.
• Volleyball (Recreational)
Langevin School, 107 - 6A Street NE
www.apollocalgary.com/apollo/volleyball
Every Friday, 7pm-9pm, until April 24th
DOWNTOWN CALGARY
N
17
All are welcome. This is for all skill levels, including
recreational players and beginners. You can sign up
for the season or drop-in.
• Western Cup 2009
www.westerncup.com
April 10th-12th
Annual GLBT sporting tournament.
• Yoga
No information available.
Alberta Rockies Gay Rodeo Association
℡ (403) 541-8140
www.argra.org
• Monthly Dances ----------------------------Hillhurst-Sunnyside Community Association
1320 5th Avenue NW
Sat Mar 21st, 2009 @ 8pm
$6 ARGRA Members, $10 non-members.
Artists for the Quality of Life
℡ (403) 890-1261
www.afqol.com
Cabin Fever
Calgary Eagle, 424a 8th Ave SW
3RD THURSDAY every month
Women’s dance and social night.
Calgary Gay Fathers
[email protected]
http://www.geocities.com/calgaryfathers
Peer support group for gay, bisexual and
questioning fathers. Meeting twice a month.
1 Calgary Outlink--------------------------- ✰
#4, 1230A 17th Avenue SW
℡ (403) 234-8973
http://www.calgaryoutlink.com
Formerly know as the Gay And Lesbian Community
Services Association (GLCSA).
• Peer Support and Crisis Line
Front-line help service for GLBT individuals and
their family and friends, or anyone questioning
their sexuality.
• Library
A great selection of resource books, fiction, nonfiction, videos and everything in between, all with a
queer perspective.
• Drop-In Center
A safe and supportive environment for one-to-one
peer counseling for many issues surrounding family,
coming out, homosexuality, loneliness and other
issues.
• Between Men and Between Men Online
Tuesdays 7pm-9pm
Peer support, sexual health education for gay
or bisexual men, as well as those who may be
uncertain or questioning their sexuality. Discussions
range from personal relationship or life issues, to
sexual health and well-being.
• Rehearsals
Old Y Centre, 223 - 12 Avenue SW
Tuesday nights, Sept-Jun, 7pm-9:30pm
• Calgary Networking Club
MPs, 1742 - 10th Ave SW
First Tuesday of every month, 5pm-7pm
The networking meetings are open to all individuals
who would like to promote their businesses or
who would like to meet new people - no business
affiliation is necessary.
• Calgary Sings
Knox United Church (506 - 4th Street SW)
Sat, Mar 28th, 7:30pm
Tickets: $18.75 via Pumphous Theatre Box Office,
online or phone (403) 263-]0079.
• Heading Out
2nd and 4th Friday of every month, 7pm-9pm
Peer group for men who are looking for an
alternative social activity to the bar. Activities vary
and are fun and entertaining.
• Eclipse Concert
Rozsa Centre, University of Calgary
Sat June 20th, 8:00pm
Tickets $20. To purchase, please visit website.
• Illusions Calgary
Social group for Calgary and area transgender
community members (cross dressers, transvestites,
drag kings and queens). Illusions provides a safe,
discrete and welcoming atmosphere, in which
transgendered people can meet others of like mind.
Illusions offers discretion, acceptance, compassion
and a safe place to express your gender. Crossdressing is the purpose of the group, but is not
mandatory.
Calgary Men’s Chorus
http://www.calgarymenschorus.org
Calgary Sexual Health Centre -------- ✰
304, 301 14th Street NW
℡ (403) 283-5580
http://www.calgarysexualhealth.ca
Calgary Sexual Health Centre is a pro-choice
organization that believes all people have the right
and ability to make their own choices regarding
their sexual and reproductive health. Calgary
Sexual Health Centre started as a volunteer based,
grassroots organization and has been providing
comprehensive sexuality education and counselling
programs to the Calgary community since 1972.
• Inside Out
Every Monday, 7pm-9pm
Peer-facilitated youth group for GLBTQ ages 15-25.
The group aims to let youth know they are not
alone, and to connect them with their peers. It is
a funky and safe environment with a variety of
resources and activities.
Looking for Something?
Browse over 450 listings in our Online GLBT Business Directory, and our
complete Online GLBT Community Events Calendar.
www.gaycalgary.com
18
• New Directions
Every 3rd Friday of the month, 7pm-9pm
Drop in peer-support group to provide support and
resources for individuals who identify as transsexual
or inter-sexed. If you are transsexual, or know
of someone who is, please contact our office for
information and assistance. You are not alone!
There is support!
• SHEQ Soulful Healing Ego Quest
℡ Trudy or Krista, (403) 585-7437
Runs for a ten week period on Thursdays, 7pm
A workshop for women that want to be themselves
in a supportive, safe environment. It is a chance
to grow and share their experiences related to
women’s sexuality. To participate, please call the
exclusive SHEQ line or leave your name and a
contact time/number with Calgary Outlink.
• Womynspace
Every first and third Friday, 7pm-9pm
Peer social/support group for women providing an
evening of fun, bonding, discussion and activities.
Calgary Queer Book Club
Weeds Cafe (1903 20 Ave NW)
Wed, Mar 25th
First meeting. Look us up on Facebook.
Deer Park United Church/Wholeness Centre
77 Deerpoint Road SE ℡ (403) 278-8263
http://www.dpuc.ca
Worship Time - 10am Sundays
Different Strokes
http://www.differentstrokescalgary.org
• Swim Practice
SAIT Pool, 1301 - 16th Ave NW
Sundays and Thursdays, 6-7pm
Different Strokes Calgary accommodates both
recreational and competitive swimmers. Coaching
is offered to assist with technique and fitness
development. After swim practice is a nice cool
down in the hot tub where announcements will be
made. Usually team members will go for dinner
after practice and everyone is welcome.
• Annual Western Cup Swim Meet
Talisman Recreation Cntr, 2225 Macleod Tr SW
Fri April 10th, 2009, 10am-2pm
A fun sprint meet. Although this is a Swim Alberta
sanctioned meet, we emphasize fun! You don’t
have to be an expert swimmer to come out and
compete and have fun!
• Monthly Screenings
The Plaza Theatre, Kensington
Mar 25th, 7pm
Were the World Mine - Encore Screening.
• Annual Film Festival
May 28th - June 6th, 2009
Miscellaneous Youth Network
http://www.miscyouth.com
• Fake Mustache -----------------------------The Soda, 211 - 12th Ave SW
First Thursday of every month
Calgary’s ONLY Drag King Show. $5 cover. $2
cover under 18. Advance tickets available at Barbies
Shop. All Ages show starts at 7:30. 18+ show
starts at 10:15.
• Money Pennies Show
Money Pennies
Saturday March 14th, 7:30pm-10:30pm
$5.00 at the door.
Girl Friends
members.shaw.ca/girlfriends
Girlsgroove
http://www.girlsgroove.ca
HIV Peer Support Group
℡ (403) 230-5832
[email protected]
ISCCA Social Association
http://www.iscca.ca
Imperial Sovereign Court of the Chinook Arch.
• Shooters at Texas Lounge
Tuesdays and Saturdays, 8pm-11:30pm
• Shooters at Calgary Eagle
Sat Mar 7, Mar 21
• Shooters at the Backlot
Mar 20, Apr 10
• Drag Shows at Calgary Eagle
March 29, 9pm
• Drag Shows at Money Pennies
See website for details.
• Introduction of Candidates
Texas Lounge
Tues, Mar 10th, 8pm-11:30pm
• Candidate Show
Money Pennies
Sat, Mar 21st, 9pm
Don’t Buy In Project
http://www.dontbuyin.ca
This Calgary Police Service Initiative aims to
encourage youth to working towards an inclusive
environment in which diversity is embraced in their
schools and community.
• Imperial Roast
The Texas Lounge
Tuesday, April 14th, 7:30pm-11:30pm
FairyTales Presentation Society
#4 - 1230A 17th Avenue SW
℡ (403) 244-1956
[email protected]
http://www.fairytalesfilmfest.com
Alberta Gay & Lesbian Film Festival.
• Emperor’s Pub Crawl
Friday, April 17th, 6pm-8:30pm
• DVD Resource Library
Over a hundred titles to choose from. Annual
membership is $10.
• Coronation 33
The Westin Hotel, Grand Ball Room
Saturday, April 18th, 6pm
• In-Town Show
MPs Eatery & Bar
Thursday, April 16th, 7pm
• Out of Town Show
Calgary Eagle
Friday, April 17th, 9pm
• Alaskan Bird Water Party
Calgary Eagle
Sunday, April 19th, 3pm-7pm
• Tough Drag Show
Calgary Eagle
Sunday, April 19th, 11am
All monies raised go to Charity: Agape Manor,
Beswick House, HIV Peer Support, Artists for Quality
of Life, Children’s Wish Foundation
Knox United Church
506 - 4th Street SW
℡ (403) 269-8382
http://www.knoxunited.ab.ca
Knox United Church is an all-inclusive church
located in downtown Calgary. A variety of facility
rentals are also available for meetings, events and
concerts.
• Worship Services
Wednesdays - Communion Service 12:10pm.
Sundays - 11am. September to June.
Sundays - 10:30am in July and August.
Mystique
[email protected]
Mystique is primarily a Lesbian group for women 30
and up but all are welcome.
• Coffee Night
Second Cup (2312 - 4th Street SW)
Last Saturday of every month, 7:30pm-10ish.
NETWORKS
℡ (403) 293-3356
[email protected]
A social, cultural, and service organization for
the mature minded and “Plus 40” gay, lesbian,
bisexual, and transgendered individuals seeking to
meet with others at age-appropriate activities within
apositive, safe, non-threatening and nurturing
environment.
Parents for Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG)
℡ Sean: (403) 695-5791
http://www.pflagcanada.ca
PFLAG Canada is a registered charitable
organization that provides support, education and
resources to parents, families and individuals who
have questions or concerns about sexual orientation
or gender identity.
Positive Space Committee
4825 Mount Royal Gate SW
℡ (403) 440-6383
[email protected]
http://www.mtroyal.ca/positivespace
The Positive Space Committee at Mount Royal
College works to raise awareness and challenge
the patterns of silence that continue to marginalize
lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans-gendered, two-spirited
and queer (LGBTTQ) individuals.
Pride Calgary Planning Committee
www.pridecalgary.ca
℡ (403) 262-3410
• Pride 2009 - Dance
Sat September 5th
• Pride 2009 - Parade and Street Gala
Sunday September 6th
Pride Rainbow Project
[email protected]
http://www.priderainbowproject.com
Youth run project designed to show support for
same-sex marriage in Canada and elsewhere. A
fabric rainbow banner approximately 5 feet wide
- goal is to make it 3.2km (2 miles) long, in order
to break the world record.
Primetimers Calgary
[email protected]
http://www.primetimerscalgary.com
Prime Timers Calgary is designed to foster social
interaction for its members through a variety of
social, educational and recreational activities. It is
open to all gay and bisexual men of any age and
respects whatever degree of anonymity that each
member desires.
• Free Pool at the Calgary Eagle
Every Wednesday
• Saturday Coffee
Midtown Co-op, 1130 - 11th Ave SW
Every Saturday, 10am
• Monthly Gathering at MoneyPennies
Please check the website.
• Vertigo Theatre Night
March 8th, 6:30pm
Art of Murder - Director’s Performance
Urban Sex Radio Show
CJSW 90.9 FM
http://www.cjsw.com
Every Wednesday from 9-10pm
Focus on sexuality; gay bisexual lesbian trans
gendered and straight issues here in Calgary and
around the web.
Western Canada Bigmen and Admirers
groups.yahoo.com/group/
WesternCanadaBigmenGroup/
[email protected]
Queers on Campus -------------------- ✰
279R Student Union Club Spaces, U of C
℡ (403) 220-6394
http://www.ucalgary.ca/~glass
Formerly GLASS - Gay/Lesbian Association of
Students and Staff.
www.vigorcalgary.ca
Violence in Gay Male Relationships (VIGOR) is a
committee of professionals dedicated to increasing
the awareness of gay men’s domestic violence and
the services available to them.
• Coffee Night
2nd Cup, Kensington.
Every Tuesday, 7pm.
See Calgary - Bars and Clubs.
Rocky Mountain Bears
[email protected]
http://www.rockymountainbears.com
• Bear Bar Night
Calgary Eagle
Fri, Mar 13th
• Fondue Night at Lyle’s
4636 Monterey Ave NW
March 21st, 5pm
$5 to cover costs.
March 13th, 27th
Safety Under the Rainbow
http://www.safetyrainbow.ca
Mission: To raise awareness and understanding of
same-sex domestic violence and homophobic youth
bullying.
Sharp Foundation
℡ (403) 272-2912
[email protected]
54 Battistella
192 15th Avenue SW ℡ (403) 290-1664
www.battistella.ca
Condo developer, real estate.
57 BRAZILya
Calgary Civil Marriage Centre
℡ (403) 246-4134
[email protected]
Marriage Commissioner for Alberta (aka Justice of
the Peace - JP), Marriage Officiant, Commissioner
for Oaths.
24 Courtney Aarbo (Barristers & Solicitors)
1138 Kensington Road NW
http://www.courtneyaarbo.ca
GLBT legal services.
Cruiseline
℡ (403) 777-9494 trial code 3500
✰
http://www.cruiseline.ca
Telephone classifieds and chat - 18+ ONLY.
✰
℡ Jim Duncan: (403) 978-6600
Duncan’s Residential Cleaning
Retail Stores
Rainbow Community Church
Hillhurst United, 1227 Kensington Close NW
[email protected]
http://www.rainbowcommunitychurch.ca
Services: every Sunday afternoon at 4:00pm
The Rainbow Community Church is an all-inclusive
church; everyone is welcome.
Services
℡ (403) 571-5120
Restaurants
See Calgary - Bars and Clubs.
Wares & Wear Ventures Inc.
See Canada - Retail Stores.
www.brazilyalaser.com
Vigor Calgary
9 MPs (Money Pennies) -----------------
http://www.priape.com
Clothing and accessories. Adult toys, leather wear,
movies and magazines. Gifts.
#3, 1114 - 11th Street SW
℡ (403) 255-7004
4 Calgary Eagle Inc. ---------------------
16 Priape Calgary ------------------------ ✰
1322 - 17 Ave SW
℡ (403) 215-1800
℡ (403) 457-2955
“Yeah... What She Said!” Radio Show
CJSW 90.9 FM
[email protected]
Every Monday evening, 8:30-9pm
• Pumphouse Theatre Night
March 17th, 8:00pm
Happy Birthday Dear Alice
• Coat Check
Calgary Eagle
http://www.thesharpfoundation.com
• 4th Annual Taste for Life
Gypsy Bistro and Wine Bar (817 - 1st Str. SW)
Tues, Mar 10th, 5:30pm or 7:30pm
℡ Reservations: (403) 263-5869
Proceeds to Bewsick House, Scott Hourse, Project
2011 (our newest home!)
51 A Little More Interesting ----------------- ✰
1501B, 17th Avenue SW ℡ (403) 475-7775
http://wwww.alittlemoreinteresting.com
Adult Depot ---------------------------- ✰
140, 58th Ave SW
℡ (403) 258-2777
Gay, bi, straight video rentals and sex toys.
48 Barbies Shop -------------------------- ✰
1313 16th Avenue SW ℡ (403) 262-8265
http://www.barbiesshop.com
Bongs and Such------------------------ ✰
214, 2066 18th Ave NE ℡ (403) 250-7004
4829 Macleod Tr. SW ℡ (403) 243-5251
1-866-411-BONG
Residential cleaning. Free estimates.
Lorne Doucette (CIR Realtors)
℡ (403) 461-9195
http://www.lornedoucette.com
Marnie Campbell (Maxwell Realtors)
℡ (403) 479-8619
http://www.marniecampbell.ca
MFM Communications
℡ (403) 543-6970
1-877-543-6970
http://www.mfmcommunications.com
Web site hosting and development. Computer
hardware and software.
Rev. Nadene Rogers
℡ (403) 247-0602
http://www.weddingsmyway.com
Marriage Commissioner.
Erotic Xxes Boutique------------------- ✰
4823 Macleod Trail SW ℡ (403) 243-4196
4008 - 26th Street SE ℡ (403) 207-5542
http://www.eroticxxesboutique.ca
Open 7 days a week and holidays
Mortgage solutions.
41 La Fleur ------------------------------------
Hair salon and esthetics.
103 - 100 7th Avenue SW
℡ (403) 266-1707
Florist and Flower Shop.
The Naked Leaf---------------------------305 10th Street NW
℡ (403) 283-3555
http://www.thenakedleaf.ca
Organic teas and tea ware.
Rick Grenier (Invis)
℡ (403) 862-1162
[email protected]
45 R. Cobalt ------------------------------- ✰
735 12th Avenue SW ℡ (403) 228-7822
56 Sacred Balance Piercing
1528 - 17th Avenue SW ℡ (403) 277-4449
www.sacredbalancetattoo.com
Tattos and body piercing.
SafeWorks
Free and confidential HIV/AIDS and STI testing.
19
DOWNTOWN EDMONTON
N
• Calgary Drop-in Centre
Room 117, 423 - 4th Ave SE
℡ (403) 699-8216
Mon-Fri: 9am-12pm, Sat: 12:15pm-3:15pm
• Centre of Hope
Room 201, 420 - 9th Ave SE
℡ (403) 410-1180
Mon-Fri: 1pm-5pm
• Sheldon M. Chumir Health Centre
1213 - 4th Str SW
℡ (403) 955-6014
Sat-Thu: 4:15pm-7:45pm, Fri: Closed
• Safeworks Van
℡ (403) 850-3755
Sat-Thu: 8pm-12am, Fri: 4pm-12am
Sol Sourced Weddings
℡ (403) 270-9480
http://www.solsourcedweddings.com
Soleiha B. Mahrcell, Wedding Commissioner.
Theatre and Fine Arts
36 ATP, Alberta Theatre Projects
℡ (403) 294-7402
http://www.ATPlive.com
AXIS Contemporary Art ------------------107, 100 - 7 Ave SW ℡ (403) 262-3356
[email protected]
www.axisart.ca
Fairytales
See Calgary - Community Groups.
43 Lisa Heinricks (Artist) ---------------------
Art Central, 100 7th Ave SW, lower level
http://www.creamydreamy.com
35 One Yellow Rabbit -------------------------
Big Secret Theatre - EPCOR CENTRE
www.oyr.org
℡ (403) 299-8888
20
37 Pumphouse Theatre-------------------
2140 Pumphouse Avenue SW
℡ (403) 263-0079
http://www.pumphousetheatres.ca
✰
Bathhouses/Saunas
Stagewest ------------------------------ ✰
727 - 42 Avenue SE
℡ (403) 243-6642
http://www.stagewestcalgary.com
58 Theatre Junction ----------------------
Theatre Junction GRAND, 608 1st St. SW
✰
℡ (403) 205-2922
[email protected]
http://www.theatrejunction.com
34 Vertigo Mystery Theatre -----------------161, 115 - 9 Ave SE
℡ (403) 221-3708
http://www.vertigomysterytheatre.com
EDMONTON
Bars and Clubs
5 Boots Bar and Lounge ---------------- ✰
10242 106th St
℡ (780) 423-5014
http://www.bootsbar.ca/
6 Buddy’s Nite Club ------------------------ ✰
11725 Jasper Ave
℡ (780) 488-6636
13 PLAY Nightclub --------------------------- ✰
10220 103 Street
℡ (780) 497-7529
[email protected]
http://www.playnightclub.ca
8 Prism Bar & Grill --------------------- ✰
10524 101st St
℡ (780) 990-0038
http://www.prismbar.ca
12 Woody’s ----------------------------------- ✰
11725 Jasper Ave
℡ (780) 488-6557
7 Down Under Baths ----------------------- ✰
12224 Jasper Ave
℡ (780) 482-7960
http://www.gayedmonton.com
11 Steamworks ------------------------------ ✰
11745 Jasper Ave
℡ (780) 451-5554
http://www.steamworksedmonton.com
Community Groups
BEEF Bear Bash
Boots Bar and Lounge
www.bearbeef.org
Bar night for hairy men and admirers.
Buck Naked Boys Club
℡ (780) 471-6993
http://www.bucknakedboys.ca
2nd Saturday of every month
Naturism club for men. Our club has been meeting
continuously for over 10 years. The similar club in
Calgary ceased to exist several years ago. Naturism
is being social while everyone is naked, and it does
not include sexual activity. Therefore participants
do not need to be gay, only male, but almost all
participants over the years do self-describe as being
gay or bisexual.
Camp fYrefly
7-104 Dept. of Educational Policy Studies
Faculty of Education, University of Alberta
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2G5
http://www.fyrefly.ualberta.ca
• Gala Fundraiser
deVine Wines & Spirits, 10111 - 104 Street
℡ (780) 421-9463
[email protected]
Saturday, March 7th, 8pm
$100 includes a $60 contribution to Camp
fYreflyand a $60 Charitable Donation Receipt.
Space is limited to the first 80 registrants.
Edmonton Pride Week Society
http://www.prideedmonton.org
• Pride Week 2009 - Age of Aqueerius
June 12 to 21, 2009
Edmonton Prime Timers
[email protected]
www.primetimersww.org/edmonton
EPT is a group of older gay men and their admirers
who come from diverse backgrounds but have
common social interests. Meetings include a social
period, a short business meeting and then either
a guest speaker, discussion panel, or a potluck
supper. Special interest groups meet for other social
activities throughout the month. In July and August
we have a BBQ or picnic in lieu of a meeting and in
December it’s replaced with a Christmas party. EPT
is affiliated with Prime Timers World Wide.
• Monthly Meetings
Unitarian Church, 10804 - 119th Street
2nd Sunday of most months, 2:30pm
March 8th: Presentation on Health Problems
April 12th: Annual General Meeting
May 10th: Presentation by HIV Edmonton
June 14th: Bingo
July 11th-13th: BBQ and/or Campout at Pine Trails
• Home Movies
Fri, Mar 13th, 6pm
Chicago, Bourne Ultimatum. Contact for more
information.
• Dining Out
Prism Bar & Grill
March 20th, 6:30pm
Steak dinner. $15 each.
• Annual General Meeting
March 15th
• Bears Movie Night
TV room, Pride Centre of Edmonton
Last Sunday of the month, 1-6pm
• Coffee
Tim Hortons (104th Street)
March 18th, 2:30pm
Edmonton Rainbow Business Association
3379, 11215 Jasper Ave ℡ (780) 429-5014
http://www.edmontonrba.org
ERBA’s primary focus is the provision of networking
opportunities for gay, lesbian, bisexual and
transgendered (GLBT) owned or operated and
GLBT-friendly businesses in the Edmonton region.
Membership is open to all kinds of entrepreneurs,
from tradespeople to professionals to commission
salespeople.
• After Business Mixers
Garage Burger Bar (10244 - 106th St.)
2nd Wednesday every month 5:30–7:30pm
Edmonton Illusions Social Club
Boots Bar & Grill
℡ (780) 387-3343
groups.yahoo.com/group/edmonton_illusions
2nd Thursday of each month
4 Edmonton STD
11111 Jasper Ave
Edmonton Vocal Minority
[email protected]
www.evmchoir.com
℡ (780) 479-2038
3 HIV Network Of Edmonton Society ---
11456 Jasper Ave
1 Pride Centre of Edmonton ----------- ✰
95A Street, 111 Ave
℡ (780) 488-3234
✰
www.hivedmonton.com
Imperial Sovereign Court of the Wild Rose
http://www.gayedmonton.org
• Bingo with the WPCCs
Boots Bar & Lounge
Mon, Mar 9th, 6pm
• Get Tested for STIs
Last Thurs of Month, 3pm - 6pm
Starting Mar 26th
• GLBT Seniors Drop-In
Every Tuesday & Thursday, 1-4pm
Program serving our GLBT seniors. Hosted by Jeff
Bovee.
• Trans Education/Support Group
1st & 3rd Sundays of each month, 2-4pm
Support and education for all transsexual,
transgendered, intersexed, two-spirited and
questioning individuals.
• Men’s Discussion Group
[email protected]
Every Sunday, 7pm
Mens social and discussion group.
• Men’s HIV Support Group
2nd Monday of the month, 7-9pm
• Prime Timers
See Edmonton Primetimers.
• Queer Youth Sport & Recreation night
Alex Taylor School Gym, 9321 Jasper Ave
℡ Brendan, (780) 488-3234
[email protected]
First Tuesday of every month, 4:30pm
• Suit Up and Show Up Group
Every Saturday, 12 noon
Big Book Study of Alcoholics Anonymous.
• Sick and tired of being sick and tired?
Every Thursday, 7pm-8pm
Escape Cocaine.
• YouthSpace
[email protected]
Tuesday to Friday, 3pm-7pm
Saturday 2pm-7pm
An after-school drop-in program for gay, lesbian,
bisexual, trans-identified, queer, questioning and
allied (GLBTQQ&A) youth under 25.
• Turnabout 2009
Boots Bar & Lounge
Sat, Mar 28th, 10pm-12am
• Dinner with the Imperial House
Boots Bar & Lounge
Sun, Mar 29th, 6pm-8pm
All you can eat pierogi dinner, $10/person.
• 007: Boy’s Night Out
Woody’s
Fri, Mar 15th, 10pm-12am
• Youth Understanding Youth
[email protected] www.members.shaw.ca/yuy
Every Saturday, 7pm-9pm
Youth support and social group.
Northern Chaps
http://www.northernchaps.com
Edmonton’s original leather, latex, fetish, uniform
club. Everyone is welcome to join or attend events.
• Youth Yoga
Alex Taylor School Gym (9321 Jasper Ave)
Every 1st Thursday, 4:30pm
OUTreach
University of Alberta, basement of SUB
[email protected]
http://www.ualberta.ca/~outreach
Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender/transsexual,
Queer, Questioning and Straight-but-not-Narrow
student group.
• A Night Out With the Girls
Play Nightclub
April 3rd
Team Edmonton
[email protected]
http://www.teamedmonton.ca
Members are invited to attend and help determine
the board for the next term. If you are interested in
running for the board or getting involved in some of
the committees, please contact us.
• Badminton
Oliver School, 10227 - 118 Street
[email protected]
Wednesdays, 6pm-7:30pm
Season starts March 8th
Women’s Drop-In Recreational Badminton.
•Ballroom Dancing
Foot Notes Dance Studio, 9708-45 Avenue NW
℡ (780) 469-3281
Sundays, 7:30-8:30pm
Beginner Ballroom program is designed for people
who have no previous dance instruction and have
the desire to gain confidence on the social dance
floor. *Students may take level 2 upon completion
of the beginner course. *All gender combinations of
dancers are welcome. *Partners are not required.
Absolute Beginner Session Dates: September 21st
- November 30th, January 18th - March 29th, April
19th - July 5th. $149.00 +GST / 10 weeks. Call
to register.
• Blazin’ Bootcamp
Lynnwood Elementary School, 15451- 84 Ave
[email protected]
Every Monday, 7pm-8:15pm
Indoor season resumes January 5th
• Bowling (Northern Titans)
Gateway Lanes, 100 - 3414 Gateway Blvd
[email protected]
Every Saturday, 5pm-7pm
Resumes Saturday January 3rd
$15.00 per person.
• Cross-Country Skiing
Gold Bar Park
Saturday January 10th, 1pm
• Curling with Pride
Granite Curling Club, 8620 107 Street NW
℡ (780) 463-5942
[email protected]
Every Monday, 7:15pm-9:15pm
16 games - Oct 27 to March 2nd.
Opening Night Funspiel (October 27). St Paddy’s
Day Spiel and Awards (March 2). $250/person.
Early bird registration draw (2 prizes of $50 off
fees) register by 1 October 2008. Final registration
date: 10 October, 2008.
• Cycling
Various locations in Edmonton
[email protected]
Every Wednesday, 6:30pm
• Dragon Boat
[email protected]
We are exploring the option of setting up a dragon
boat team for 2009. Please send your name and
contact information.
• Gymnastics, Drop-in
Ortona Gymnastics Club, 8755 - 50 Avenue
[email protected]
Tuesdays & Thursdays, 8pm-10pm
Have the whole gym to yourselves and an instructor
to help you achieve your individual goals. Cost is
$5.00 per session.
• Outdoor Pursuits - Night Ski/Snowboard
[email protected]
Snow Valley
March 6th
$10 for 4 hours. E-mail if interested.
• Running (Arctic Frontrunners)
Kinsmen Sports Centre
[email protected]
Every Sunday, 10am-11am
All genders and levels of runners and walkers are
invited to join this free activity.
• Swimming (Making Waves)
NAIT Swimming Pool
[email protected]
Every Tuesday, 8am-9pm
Every Thursday, 7:30pm-8:30pm
• Roller Derby (Practices)
[email protected]
Mondays & Thursdays, 6:30-8:30pm
E-Ville Roller Derby is a community-wise sports
initiative for adult females. Their purpose is for fun,
friendly sports competition among like-minded
women. You need no prior experience in roller
derby. They’ll teach you everything you need to
know, including how to skate!
• Samsara Yoga
Korezone Fitness, #203, 10575 -115 Street
[email protected]
Every Sunday, 2pm-3:30pm
• Soccer
[email protected]
• Tennis
[email protected]
• Volleyball, Free To Be Intermediate
Amiskiwaciy Academy, 101 Airport Road
[email protected]
Thursday nights from 8pm-10pm
Indoor season resumes on January 8th
• Volleyball, Free To Be Recreational
Mother Teresa School, 9008 - 105A Ave
Tuesday Nights, 8pm-10pm
Indoor season resumes January 6th
Drop-In $4.00, Full Season $60.00 ($2.50/game),
Half Season $35.00 ($2.91/game)
Womonspace
℡ (780) 482-1794
[email protected]
www.womonspace.ca
Women’s social group, but all welcome at events.
• St. Paddy’s Day Dance
Bellevue Community Hall
7308 - 112 Ave NW
March 14th, 9pm - 1am
Members $10, guests of members $15.
Restaurants
5 Garage Burger Bar & Grill --------------10242 106th St
℡ (780) 423-5014
8 Prism Bar & Grill ---------------------
See Edmonton - Bars and Clubs.
✰
Retail Stores
Rodéo Drive
11528 - 89th Street
℡ (780) 474-0413
[email protected]
http://www.rodeodrive.ca
His and hers fetish wear, toys, jewelry, etc.
See Canada - Retail Stores.
21
Services
Cruiseline
℡ (780) 413-7122 trial code 3500
http://www.cruiseline.ca
Telephone classifieds and chat - 18+ ONLY.
Robertson-Wesley United Church
10209 - 123 St. NW ℡ (780) 482-1587
[email protected]
www.rwuc.org
Worship: Sunday mornings at 10:30am
People of all sexual orientations welcome. Other
LGBT events include a monthly book club and
a bi-monthly film night. As a caring spiritual
community, we’d love to have you join us!
• Soul OUTing
Second Sunday every month, 7pm
An LGBT-focused alternative worship.
• Film Night
Bi-monthly, contact us for exact dates.
• Book Club
Monthly, contact us for exact dates.
Exposure Festival
http://www.exposurefestival.ca
Edmonton’s Queer Arts and Culture Festival.
BANFF/CANMORE
Community Groups
Mountain Pride
℡ Brian, (403) 431-2569
[email protected]
www.gaybanff.com
Serving the GLBTQS community in Banff, Canmore,
Lake Louise and Area.
• Queer Cinema Night
The Living Room, the Hub, 302 Buffalo Street
Monday, March 9th, 8pm
March movie will be “Rent”.
• Coffee Night
The Hub, 302 Buffalo Street
See website for details.
22
LETHBRIDGE
RED DEER
Community Groups
Community Groups
GALA/LA
℡ (403) 308-2893
www.newgaylethbridge.ca
Gay and Lesbian Alliance of Lethbridge and Area.
• Monthly Dances
Airforce Veterans Hall, 517 - 5 Ave S
2nd or 3rd Saturday every month, 9pm-2am
Mar 21, Apr 18, and May 23
Bring your membership card and photo ID.
• Monthly Potluck Dinners
McKillop United Church, 2329 - 15 Ave S
3rd or Last Sat. every month, 5:30pm-8pm
Mar 29 , Apr 26, May 31
Members/family/friends, and children are all
welcome to attend. Please bring dish that will serve
4-6 people and own beverage (no-alcohol). Plates,
utensils, and coffee provided.
• Board Meeting
1206 - 6th Ave S
Tues March 24th, 7:30pm
Mar 24, Apr 28, May (Annual Meeting)
• Support Line
℡ (403) 308-2893
Monday OR Wednesday, 7pm-11pm
Leave a message any other time.
• Parents & Friends for Lesbians & Gays
Call us for information.
• Gay Youth Alliance Group
℡ Betty, (403) 381-5260
[email protected]
Every second Wednesday, 3:30pm-5pm
• Friday Mixer
The Mix (green water tower)
103 Mayor Magrath Dr S
Every Friday at 10pm
Gay & Lesbian Integrity Assoc. (GALIA)
University of Lethbridge
[email protected]
GBLTTQQ club on campus.
Affirm
Sunnybrook United Church
℡ (403) 347-6073
2nd Tuesday of the month, 7pm
Composed of LGBTQ people, their friends, family
and allies. No religious affiliation necessary.
Activities include support, faith and social justice
discussions, film nights, and potlucks!
ALBERTA
Community Groups
Alberta Positive Voices Conference
Camp Horizon, Bragg Creek
March 13-15th
A conference held by and for people living with
HIV/AIDS.
YouthSafe
http://www.youthsafe.net
Alberta’s website for youth with sex-and-gender
differences. Youthsafe.net lists the resources,
information and services to help youth find safe and
caring spaces in Alberta.
Alberta Ballet
http://www.albertaballet.com
Frequent productions in Calgary and Edmonton.
CANADA
Community Groups
Alberta Trans Support/Activities Group
http://www.albertatrans.org
A nexus for transgendered persons, regardless of
where they may be on the continuum.
Canadian Rainbow Health Coalition
P.O. Box 3043, Saskatoon, SK, S7K 3S9
℡ (306) 955-5135
1-800-955-5129
http://www.rainbowhealth.ca
Egale Canada
8 Wellington St E, Third Floor
Toronto, Ontario, M5E 1C5
1-888-204-7777
www.egale.ca
Egale Canada is the national advocacy and lobby
organization for gay men, lesbians, bisexuals,
trans-identified people and our families.
Membership fees are pay-what-you-can, although
pre-authorized monthly donors are encouraged (and
get a free Egale Canada t-shirt). Egale has several
committees that meet by teleconference on a
regular basis; membership on these is national with
members from every region of Canada.
Retail Stores
www.wwlatex.com
Fetish wear and toys.
℡ (780) 980-1977
Services
ATM Service Solutions
1-866-640-8830
[email protected]
http://www.minibanks.net
Squirt
http://www.squirt.org
Website for dating and hook-ups. 18+ ONLY!
Broadway Across Canada
http://www.broadwayacrosscanada.ca
OUTtv
http://www.outtv.ca
GLBT Television Station.
Add Your Listing!
Find out how to have your business listed in our
monthly magazine directory:
℡ (403) 543-6960
1-888-543-6960
[email protected].
Add your listing to our online directory for free:
http://www.gaycalgary.com
GayCalgary endeavors to keep our directory and
events information accurate and up to date. If
you notice anything incorrect or out of date,
please contact us.
Non-profit groups receive free listings.
Politics
Buses Are Not Pulpits
By Stephen Lock
For the benefit of new readers of this column, I will
state at the outset a particular bias when it comes
to this month’s subject. Regular readers will have
already learned of this bias.
While quite churched in my younger years I now identify as
agnostic. I have issues with “The Church” and organized religion
in general. I vacillate between a desire to be fully atheist yet deal
with a nagging sense that to do so might compromise how I spend
eternity. I don’t outright reject the notion of a Deity, an afterlife
or a conscious eternity (as opposed to oblivion) but am not sure I
fully accept the concepts, either. Being agnostic hedges my bets
with that whole eternity thing.
My religious process has been complex and would take up too
much space to go into here. And my process isn’t the point. The
point is to clarify that I understand faith, am familiar with Scripture, and understand being a practicing Christian (and hopefully,
by extension, practitioners of other religions).
The issues I have with Christianity are not so much in regards
to the faith per se, although those exist, but have more to do with
how certain Christians choose to practice that faith. I make a
distinction between “Christian” and “Christianist.” It is mainly
the latter I have issues with - the rigid, sanctimonious, Rightwing, bigoted and condemnatory manifestation of the faith that
those of us who have fought for GLBTQ rights and other liberal
causes have so often encountered.
As an activist, I have had public and sometimes tense confrontations with various representatives of “the Church”, including a
certain bishop as well as a high profile imam.
However, despite what many may see as my “anti-Christian”
stance, which is a rather shallow reading of my position, I have
always maintained people have a right to their beliefs as long as
those beliefs do not interfere with my life or my beliefs or those of
others. There is room in a liberal democracy for a variety of views
and approaches.
I take issue with blanket attacks against Catholics or Pentecostals, for instance, despite the issues I have with them. To me,
dogma is fair game for debate and discussion and I am highly
critical of much of the dogma within Christianity, be it Orthodox,
Catholic or Protestant.
I also think it is reasonable to criticize certain practices. However, here it gets a bit murky as it is too easy to slip into bigotry.
Being anti-Catholic, for instance, is no different than being antiSemitic or Islamophobic. Bigotry is bigotry however it manifests
itself. Informed dissent or disagreement is one thing. Blanket
attacks against a particular faith are something else.
There is much in how Christianity is presented in North
America that I find offensive. However, as a civil libertarian and
an advocate for equality I am aware the offence is my issue. If I
am offended by seeing a massive “Jesus is Lord” sign on the side
of the Church of the Nazarene downtown, the approach is not to
force the church to remove it because I happen to find it offensive
but for me to learn to tolerate it, if not actually accept it being
there. Does the slogan harm me? No. Does it force me to adopt
beliefs I do not hold? No. It is no different, when you come right
down to it, than having the right to display a Rainbow Pride flag
or carry a placard supporting gay rights in the annual Gay Pride
Parade. Freedom of expression and belief cuts both ways.
Where I take issue, however, is when religion spills into the
secular sphere, whether it is a temple, synagogue, church or
mosque or cleric doing it, or secular humanists choosing to take
their issues concerning religion into the public sphere.
The atheist/agnostic campaign to emblazon the sides of buses
with “There probably is no God, so relax and enjoy life” is therefore likewise offensive to me.
I see it as a pointless, and needless, provocation for one
thing. What is to be gained by such a campaign? Will seeing this
splashed across public transit suddenly convert, if that is the
word, individuals to question the existence of God and embrace
agnosticism or become atheist? Of course not. It’s a cheap and
rather tacky publicity stunt, and I find that offensive.
Proponents say it is to open dialogue. Bull. It is clearly designed to elicit a reaction, not a response. What dialogue needs
to be opened here? Dialogue infers some sort of mutually agreed
resolution. It seems pretty clear no such resolution will ever occur between people of faith and those who reject faith. Living together in peace and allowing each to hold their particular views is
valid and, in Canada, we have that. What’s the point of wiggling
a stick into a hornet’s nest other than to rile up the hornets?
True, there is a freedom of speech issue here. Humanists
(amongst whom I count myself) are free to express their secularism as much as any religious group is free to express their faith,
and both camps do. But on the sides of a bus?
Calgary Transit is a public service and as such should remain
neutral in areas such as religion and politics. I see no reason for
Calgary Transit to accept such ads, from either side. It would be,
I would suggest, perfectly within their rights to say, “You know
what? This is going to offend some of our riders and others who
have to see the ads. It’s an unnecessary provocation. So, no,
we’re not doing it.”
This is not censorship. By disallowing such ads to be displayed through a publicly funded venue, from either side, is
not disallowing the debate/discussion/dialogue to occur...there
is ample opportunity to engage in such debate in any number
of spheres in our society and rightly so. On the sides of a bus
strikes me as perhaps not the most appropriate place to do so.
To be clear, I would be equally offended seeing a “Christ is
Risen,” “Allah Akbar,” ads for Hare Krishna or quotes from the
Torah, Talmud or Vedas splashed across a city bus. Religious
billboards offend me, too, and this is no different.
I respect all these religions. They have the right to exist and
practice without molestation; this is not only a constitutional
right enshrined in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, it is a
moral and ethical right as well. This does not, however, necessarily translate into covering the sides of a public bus, bus stop
bench, or any other publicly-funded venue, even if they pay for
the ads themselves, with proselytizing advertisements. Neither
do slogans promoting the non-existence of a Deity. Public transit
was not designed to be a vehicle for a slap in the face.
It’s tacky, tasteless, and gauche. Ads for Wendy’s Hamburgers
or local radio stations, fine. Leave it at that.
23
24
Astrology
Q Scopes
“Lead with your intuition, Capricorn!”
By Jack Fertig
LIBRA (September 23 - October 22): You only
Uranus and Neptune are doing a long, slow dance,
provoking important social and technological innovations. The Sun is now joining in showing how you
as an individual can ride these currents and make a
difference yourself!
SCORPIO (October 23 - November 21): Make
ARIES (March 20 - April 19): Throw yourself
into charity work and you’ll be inspired to do greater good,
but also to see greater social and political opportunities
for yourself. The virtuous circle of public service and selfimprovement can carry you far!
TAURUS (April 20 - May 20): Your friends will
help you get ahead, if you can figure out what you really
want to do. Perhaps they can help with that question, too.
Be open-minded. Some of their suggestions are not as offthe-wall as they seem at first.
GEMINI (May 21 - June 20): Trying to act like
you know it all will only blow up in your face, even if it
seems to work. You’ll be more authoritative if you admit
to the limits of your expertise and make the effort to learn
more.
CANCER (June 21 - July 22): Looking wise and
worldly, and/or mixing with a new crowd, will make you
feel and look a lot sexier. Be open to adventure and you’re
sure to get as much as you can handle.
LEO (July 23 - August 22): Your eagerness
for erotic experimentation could be a bit dazzling, even
confusing for your partner. Be clear on what you want, but
also open to what your mate wants, even though he or she
may not know the answer to that.
know your limits when you hit them. Sports injuries or
the pains of excess could prove a blessing in disguise. As
with work, “play smarter, not harder.” Take it as a creative
challenge and you will be pleased with your innovations.
a list of ”family” and one of “friends.” Can’t decide which
list to put certain people on? Spend time with them to
find out. Host a small gathering of your most indefinable
friends/family, the nearest, the dearest and the queerest.
SAGITTARIUS (November 22 - December
20): Siblings will confuse family issues, but that leads
to new perspectives. Work to get new insights. If you
have problems with neighbors, take those on, too. Brace
yourself! Their assessment of the situation may shock you!
CAPRICORN (December 21 - January 19):
Surprising news can confuse your financial situation.
Relax. That’s just new information that can prove very
helpful once you sort it out. When it comes to money, lead
with your intuition, but double check with logic before you
do anything!
AQUARIUS (January 20 - February 18):
Financial surprises can throw you for a loop. Remember
what’s really important to you and take it as another
opportunity to re-invent yourself. No harm in an
occasional buzz, but if getting high is on your priority list,
you need to think about that!
PISCES (February 19 - March 19): You could
get lost in meditation, but that’s the point. To truly find
yourself you have to be at least a little bit lost. Charitable
works can lead to empathetic catharses and deep insights.
VIRGO (August 23 - September 22): Your
eagerness to work with others may be more gung-ho than
effective. Challenge your own collaborative skills, not
theirs! That could mean holding back a bit. Lead with your
intuition, but always confirm with direct communications.
Jack Fertig, a professional astrologer since
1977 teaches at the Online College of
Astrology : http://www.astrocollege.com.
He can be reached for personal or business
consultations at 415-864-8302 or through
his website at http://www.starjack.com
25
Theatre Preview
The Lieutenant of Inishmore
Irish Play Kicks Off Bloody Good GZT Season
By Jason Clevett
Padraic is a ruthless Irish Liberation Army enforcer,
and the one thing he loves more than anything else
in the world: his little black cat, Wee Thomas. When
Wee Thomas is found dead on a lonely country road,
the terrorist in Padraic wants someone to pay for
kitty’s execution - just as soon as he’s returned from
his torture and chip-shop bombing stints in Northern Ireland. The Lieutenant of Inishmore explodes
onto the Vertigo Studio stage
March 14th – 29th with love,
guns, blood, and the difficult
to master Irish accent.
“My friend you don’t have to tell me! We have a
fantastic actor/director Pat Benadict who is straight
from Ireland herself. She is working very intently
with all of us being militant with our Irish accents.
That right there is a challenge to master that
dialect,” Ground Zero Theatre’s Ryan Luhning
told GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine. “We are
having a great time with it so far. That isn’t even
the basement of the iceberg of the challenges of
this show.”
Ground Zero Theatre & Hit and Myth Productions brought Calgary Urinetown, The Full Monty
and Cocktales. While all of those shows were
challenging in their own right, they weren’t
quite as… bloody as a season that includes
this show as well as Evil Dead: The Musical
this May.
“When we went into last season, I specifically was coming off of performing in The
Pillowman and living in that world, and also
having new babies, I felt there wasn’t enough
light in the world. So we made an effort to lighten up and
appeal to a more mass audience. There were some rumblings
that GZT had gone soft. So going into this season it was a
conscious effort on a lot of parts to get back to the roots of the
company. I have always based my company on not only creating challenges for our audience but for the creative people that
go into the work. Not only are these challenging works for the
audience but extremely challenging for the artists as well.”
For this show, GZT has teamed up with special effects company Bleeding Art Industries to maximize the effect.
than do a half assed job of it we decided to go all the way, and
they can do some great visual effects that we just couldn’t
do,” he explained. “The play opens up and onstage is a dead
cat. Right from the get-go you are looking at the authenticity of creating what looks like a real cat. There are effects in
the show where there are actors hanging upside down, there
is a gun battle onstage, like what you would see in an action
movie, and people do get shot. There is a certain realistic effect
with the show that you want to go for. Martin McDonough has
written a very anti-violent play by using a lot of violence to get
his point across. So as the play moves on its journey, it
gets more and more comedically violent to show not
only how ridiculous the situation is, but
in society how ridiculous a means it is
to justify your ends. By the end of the
play when everything has turned into
a mess, it has reached such a climactic
point and taken the audience on such a
ride. That is why we brought bleeding arts into
the mix because it has to be realistic and comedic,
an almost heightened realism.”
The show is written by Martin McDonagh, the
author of The Pillowman.
“The very first McDonagh play I read was The
Lieutenant of Inishmore back in 2003. If you ever
read any of his works you can sense by his style
he is probably the greatest playwrite of our generation. His scripts are so well crafted and touch on
things that most people wouldn’t even touch. This
play was written back in 2001 and it was commissioned by the Royal Court Theatre. They are the
home of the risky, more unconventional work, and
they said to him, ‘We can’t produce this. It is way
too hardcore and difficult technically. We can’t
do it.’ It ended up being the Royal Shakespeare
Company that did it.
If you enjoy action movies, you will enjoy this
“love story… with guns” which has been described
as “Monty Python meets Quentin Tarantino.”
“It is a fantastic story about the state of our world and
violence in our society. It is not only a challenge for the actors,
but for the audience as well because it is such a raucous ride.
You are pretty much going to see an action movie on stage. It is
something that Calgary theatre goers have never seen before, I
guarantee that. We are about ‘event theatre.’ What sets us aside
from a normal play is that it is an event, and something people
will not forget.”
“This script deals with a lot of technical problems, and rather
The Lieutenant of Inishmore
March 14th – 29th, 2009
Vertigo Studio Theatre
www.gzt.ca
26
Community Events
Three Nights of Gender Bending
Alberta’s Post-Secondary LGBT Student Organizations Put on a Show
By Dallas Barnes
It’s time to brush off that suit and tie, or maybe your best
dress and heels to support three of Alberta’s finest postsecondary LGBT student organizations: OUTreach, the
University of Alberta’s GLBTQQ and Straight-but-not-Narrow student group; Mount Royal College’s Diversity Centre, dedicated to fostering a safe environment for people
of all genders and sexual orientations; The University of
Calgary’s Queers on Campus, a group of queer people and
allies working together to encourage and promote understanding and acceptance of queer people within the greater
student, faculty, and staff community at the University
of Calgary. This month, all three are presenting their own
evenings of gender bending at its finest, to raise money
and awareness for their respective organizations.
Play Nightclub in Edmonton will be the host of OUTreach’s “A
Night OUT with the Girls” on April 3rd. Mike Cursio, Male CoChair of OUTreach, asserts “Despite the title, both Drag Queens
and Drag kings are invited to perform.” As Venezuela Calor, Cursio
will be hosting the event and asking for audience participation in
determining the best performance.
OUTreach (U of A) Presents
A Night OUT with the Girls
Friday, April 3rd @ 8:00pm
Play Nightclub, Edmonton
www. ualberta.ca/~outreach
The Diversity Centre (MRC) Presents
Glam Slam
Saturday, March 21st
Liberty Lounge, Mount Royal College
[email protected]
Queers on Campus (U of C) Presents
Gender Bender
Friday, April 3rd @ 9:00pm
The Den, University of Calgary
[email protected]
www.ucalgary.ca/~glass
OUTreach is putting a call out for any interested performers to
message Mike at [email protected], with their Drag Name and
song they wish to perform. Six to ten performers will be selected,
and will be able to entertain the audience on Play’s central stage.
“The show is meant to be our principal fundraiser for the year.
We don’t get any financial backing from the University, so we’ve
got to raise it all ourselves,” Cursio emphasizes. Tickets for “A
Night OUT with the Girls” will be available at the door at 7:30pm,
with the show starting at 8pm.
Mount Royal College’s Diversity Centre will also be hosting
a Gender Bender of their own. On Saturday March 21st, Diego
Padilla and company will be presenting “Glam Slam”, a night dedicated to glam rock and cross dressing. Performing that night will
be the talented Fake Mustache, and a sneak preview of the Fringe
Festival’s stage presentation “Rocky Horror Picture Show”. Make
sure to dress in your Glam Rock finest!
Tickets for “Glam Slam” are available at the Student Association
at Mount Royal College, or at the Fake Mustache show at Soda on
March 5th. Presale Tickets are $5, cost $10 at the door, but you
can reduce it to $6 if you are dressed in drag. For more information, please contact The Diversity Centre.
The University of Calgary’s Queers on Campus (formerly GLASS)
will be presenting their annual Gender Bender on April 3rd, at
the Den on the University’s campus. The show starts at 9pm. The
audience is sure to be entertained by resident drag performers,
drinks, and door prizes. Make sure to wear your gender bending
finest, and be prepared for a great time. Tickets for the Queers
on Campus Gender Bender are $5 in advance and $7 at the door,
and are available from any Queers on Campus executive. For more
information please contact Queers on Campus.
These student organizations rely on their annual Gender Bender
events as their primary means of fundraising for the year. Please
support these groups in maintaining a positive space for all students!
27
Celebrity Gossip
Deep Inside Hollywood
New Projects for Johnny Knoxville
By Romeo San Vicente
Cher and
Knoxville DropOut
Energizer-Diva Cher
has had on-screen romances with a variety
of Hollywood players,
from Nicolas Cage to
Dennis Quaid to Jack
Nicholson to Diana
Scarwid. (Remember
her playing lesbian in
Silkwood? Sure you
do.) Now she’s hooking
up with John Waters’
favorite MTV personality, Johnny Knoxville, in the upcoming
comedy The Drop-Out.
The Jackass alum
stars as a slacker
and perpetual college
student whose parents
finally lose patience
and throw him out of the house; Knoxville’s character winds up
moving in with the cougar next door (Cher), whose own adult
son is in desperate need of a role model. Both Cher and Knoxville have big gay followings (OK, yes, Cher’s is bigger than big)
and enough tattoos between them to cover about one and a half
people. Maybe they’ll actually have onscreen chemistry too. We’ll
see when The Drop-Out reaches screens in 2010.
Moreton Wants You To Say Hello to Stan
Talmadge
Director David Moreton is one gay director who won’t be
pigeonholed; he made his screen debut with the moving comingof-age tale Edge of Seventeen and then followed it up with the
dark and violent Testosterone. But his upcoming comedy Say
28
Hello to Stan Talmadge speeds off in a completely different direction – Gary Cole (Office Space) stars in the title role as a deadbeat dad who tries to mend his family ties by dragging his wife
and kids cross-country in a mobile home (circa 1979) to compete
in a game show. The supporting cast includes Jennifer Coolidge,
Agnes Bruckner (Blue Car) and Tina Holmes (Six Feet Under), so
it sounds like a winner. And if not a winner then maybe a notbad Little Miss Sunshine remake. Stan Talmadge doesn’t have a
release date, but should hit the festival circuit pretty soon. Stay
tuned for buzz.
It sounds like a lesbian exploitation flick, but it’s actually a
new reality series: Hot Girls in Scary Places. As you might guess
from the on-the-nose title, this new show will send attractive
young ladies into locations that have supposedly experienced
some kind of paranormal disturbance. (Think The Ghost in the
Invisible Bikini. Or not.) The pilot for the show (airing March 13
on E!) will feature three USC cheerleaders spending the night in
an abandoned – and allegedly haunted – hospital to compete for
a $10,000 cash prize. Given the series’ all-sexy-chicks-all-thetime premise, it sounds like we have a new lesbian guilty pleasure coming to cable, just in time for the finale of The L Word.
If the March broadcast draws big numbers, look for Hot Girls in
Scary Places to become a permanent part of the E! schedule.
Guarino and Vardalos Hate Valentine’s Day
If you saw Confessions of a Shopaholic and were wondering
why the receptionist looked so familiar, it’s because actor Stephen Guarino is one of the funny boys on Logo’s Big Gay Sketch
Show. And the up-and-comer’s landed a role in I Hate Valentine’s Day, the latest from My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Connie
& Carla star Nia Vardalos, who makes her directorial debut.
Vardalos plays a florist who wants to date a restauranteur (John
Corbett, another Big Fat alum) without it turning into a serious
relationship. In addition to Guarino, the movie features the very
funny Judah Friedlander (30 Rock) as well as Dan Finnerty of
culty guy-singing-girly-songs group The Dan Band. February
may be over, but you may get to Hate Valentine’s Day before the
year is up.
Romeo San Vicente’s actually likes Valentine’s Day, especially when he’s
presented with a big package. Of candy.
Community Spotlight
Lifestyle
Camp fYrefly Passes Cocktail Chatter
Another Milestone Bar-havior and Better Martinis
By Antonio Bavaro
By Camper English
If you haven’t heard about Camp fYrefly yet, you
probably live under a rock. It is Canada’s largest
leadership retreat for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transidentified, two-spirited, queer and allied youth - the
major community outreach initiative of the Institute
for Sexual Minority Studies and Services at the University of Alberta. The camp, which is now expanding nationally, was founded in 2004 by Dr. André P.
Grace and Mr. Kristopher Wells, and is now supported by many community, individual, government,
and corporate donors.
Camp fYrefly has gained much recognition since its inception 5 years ago,
including local & national
news, tons of YouTube.
com videos and even a
nod from the queen of
gossip himself, Perez
Hilton! Last month on
the 19th, 21 members
and facilitators representing both the institute and Camp fYrefly were
introduced to the Alberta Legislature
as honoured guests by the New Democrat Party’s Opposition
House Leader, Rachel Notley. This marks the second major
introduction of a queer organization at the legislature by the
noble MLA of Edmonton Strathcona (the International Sovereign Court of the Wild Rose was introduced to the house on
November 19th, 2008). And during this latest session of the
Legislative Assembly, she was on the ball again fighting for our
rights.
Ms. Notley has been an important ally in the fight to achieve
full recognition of rights for GLBTQ persons in our province,
which hasn’t added sexual minority status alongside ethnicity,
race or religion to the Alberta Human Rights Code. Every other
province in our great nation has added it their codes, but the
Minister of Culture & Community Spirit, Progressive Conservative MLA Mr. Lindsay Blackett of Calgary North West, says that
the government has been ”looking at reforming the administrative process” of the code since April of last year. Even 10 years
after the case of Vriend vs. Alberta, in which the Supreme
Court of Canada finally ruled that provincial governments could
not exclude LGBT individuals from human rights legislation,
sexual orientation is not protected under the province’s human rights code. Ms. Notley is correct in her demand that it is
ridiculous that the victims must apply to the Supreme Court
itself in Ottawa instead of being able to follow judicial recourse
in provincial court rooms here in Alberta. Gay bashings &
homophobia still run rampant in our province, as many kids
that attend Camp fYrefly can attest to, and the population as a
whole won’t take these crimes seriously until the well deserved
recognition of our rights is included in our provincial legislation.
Bar-havioral Problems
Gay bar bartenders, who are not necessarily gay bartenders, are
usually the most efficient and fair intoxicologists in the drinking universe. I say “fair” because at straight establishments, hot
women and rich-looking men (usually jerks) get first priority, and
the bartenders frequently take drink orders out of order. Infuriating! This is not often the case in gay watering holes, where the
bartenders tend to be the hottest people in the room and don’t
need to impress you by serving you first. (You need impress them
with the size of your tips.)
Also, gay bar patrons know how to behave (toward the bartender
anyway) and will often line up in an orderly fashion at the drink
well rather than shouting and waving like the opening scene of The
Love Boat all along the bar. I take straight friends to my favorite
gay bar and they are amazed at the German-like efficiency in
place. They are often jealous and determine to start coming there
every night, until they hear the 14th Madonna remix in a row. I
can’t say I blame them.
In a nightclub or other crowded venue, or anywhere with a
mixed crowd, all bets for orderly ordering are off. You need to gain
the attention of the bartender as well as make him or her think
you’re going to be a good (i.e., fast, non-annoying) customer. Here
are a few suggestions for attracting the bartender and keeping his
attentions.
Look available. You want to make eye contact with the bartender and have him/her give you the “I see you” nod. To accomplish
this, face the bar, not your friends behind you. If you’re turned
around chatting and using the bar as a leaning post, you’re not
giving the right signal.
Be ready. When you are trying to get the bartender’s attention,
have visible cash in your hand - but don’t wave it around unless there is a row of drag queens in six-inch heels blocking your
line of sight. And if you’re planning to pay with a credit card, you
may want to keep that hidden. It takes longer to process, so the
bartender will serve the cash-holding folks first. Also, be ready
with your friends’ drink orders. Don’t wait until the bartender gets
there to turn around and say, “What do you guys want?” As the
person standing next to you, I’ll swoop in and say “Three martinis
please” when your back is turned. I’m like that.
Strategize. Don’t shout to get the bartender’s attention. Nobody
likes to be yelled at while doing their job. A friendly “Hi!” sometimes
helps though. Make your first tip the most generous one to help ensure prompt service and healthy pours for the rest of the evening. And
be respectful of others - if the guy next to you was waiting longer but
the bartender comes to you, give him the “he was here first” point.
The bartender will remember that you’re next, and you never know
if that guy next to you will return the favor and pay for your drink.
Colder, smaller, weaker: Better martinis
The diplomatic way of defining the “best martini” is as “the
martini that you like the best.” But, really, if you’re pulling a jug
of vodka out of the freezer and pouring it into a glass, you’re not
drinking a martini at all. You’re drinking a glass of cold vodka.
Add olives and you’ve got vodka with a snack.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I drink cold vodka all
29
Community Events
Western Cup 2009
Apollo Friends in Sport
By Evan Kayne
This upcoming Easter long weekend, Apollo Calgary
will be celebrating the 27th anniversary of Western
Cup - the longest running annual LGBT multi-sport
tournament in North America.
While Western Cup will have the usual assortment of athletic events for attendees, Apollo president Brad Bostock wants
all to know that the event has a large social component open
to family, spouses, friends, supporters and the athletes.
Continuing a slight format change Apollo initiated last year,
there are three social events for each night April 9th to 11th.
Thursday April 9th is the Participant Check-In where attendees can meet old friends, and make new ones. An addition
to the Thursday night set-up is the return of the fun-money
Casino. Bostock mentioned Apollo will also “…invite a lot of
social service groups and community groups as well as our
sponsors to set up booths” so visitors can be informed of what
our community has to offer.
Friday’s social event is a banquet with entertainment provided by comedians Lori Gibbs, Marcus Beaubier, and Karen
O’Keefe. The Friday night banquet is the second iteration of
this newer event, replacing the Sunday farewell brunch.
Then, of course, Saturday is
the Dance. All three functions
occur at the host hotel – the
Westin downtown. Bostock
told GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine that for those
just wanting to attend the
dance, tickets will be $20 in
advance and $25 at the door,
and will be available soon at
various locations around town
(check the Western Cup Website for updated information).
If there are fans, family and
friends considering attending
ALL social events, Apollo offers a Party Pak of admission
to all three for $75 ($90 after March 12th).
For the actual participants, checking Western Cup’s website
will also give you the varying rates for each of the athletic
events – athletes can choose “Sport & Socials” or “Sport Only”
when they register. The “Sport & Social” is the better deal
– with prices ranging (per sporting event) from a minimum of
$140 before March 12th to a maximum of $165 March 13th
and on. But don’t wait too long…registration closes March
26th!
The list of sporting events this year includes Badminton,
Bowling, Curling, Running, Swimming and Volleyball. Brad
expects a good turnout this year – while most attendees come
from Calgary, Edmonton, and various parts of Alberta, they’re
also expecting folks from Vancouver, Winnipeg, Montreal,
30
Theatre Review
Pirates of the North Saskatchewan II
All Aboard for Pirate Adventure at Jubilations
By Benjamin Hawkcliffe
If you witnessed The Pirates of the North Saskatchewan in 2005, you know why it was one of the best
shows in Jubilations history. Well, Jack is back,
with a new band of scallywags to sail the mighty
North Saskatchewan, search for treasure, and battle
some beaver.
Murray Farnell returns to the role of Captain Jack - he
absolutely captures the mannerisms that Johnny Depp made
famous in the films. Matt Andre more than lives up to capturing the pirate-ness of Jack’s dad Keith, while the stunning
Nicola Devine, whose voice will send chills down your spine,
plays Jack’s mother Mary. We asked Farnell’s thoughts on
having a hot Mom.
“Wow. Dad must really have it going on!”
Farnell stated when he and Devine chatted
with GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine
prior to a performance. Farnell returns to
Jubilations after a stint as a medi-vac copilot. “I got the offer to come back and do this
show. I was in the mood that I wanted to get
back into performing and step back into this
world. I couldn’t think of any better way to do
that than to play one of my favorite characters. It was a very good decision I think.”
For Devine, the chance to rock out appealed to her. Songs like Heart’s Crazy On
You and Barricuda strike her rocker girl chord.
“I’ve done a lot of 50’s shows so when I saw the song list for
this one, it was awesome - it is my type of music. The people
in this cast are wonderful people and performers, so getting
the chance to work with them is great. You get to run around
and be scallywags. That is what drew me to it.”
The cast is rounded out by three more incredible female
voices in Ariel Gerard as Elizabeth, Aimee Beaudoin as Elsie,
and Cherise Kotelniski as with Queen Moosette. Christoff Lundgren adds a highly comedic element in his portrayal of Benji.
It isn’t all laughter and song in this show however. I admit I
was caught off guard by a moment in the show that had tears
brimming in my eyes. Real poignant emotion isn’t exactly a
Jubilations trademark.
“So often these shows are just ‘wacka wacka’. Jubilations
performers are highly underestimated because they don’t get
challenged that way. I think it is a wonderful thing to have
because it not only gives the audiences something else to take
away, but the performers [are given] something else that they
can work with. In order sell it and make it real you have to
tune in to what you are doing,” said Devine. Farnell agreed. “I
like the way (writer) Cory Wojcik does things. He does put in
things you won’t see in any other show. People look at it and
go ‘Whoah, we have never done that.’ To have that in there is
very refreshing. The people that come are going to be pleasantly surprised by it because they don’t get a lot of drama. They
come here for singing, dancing and jokes, but we have some
emotional depth to it which adds a lot to the show. I really
enjoy that aspect of it.”
The energy in the room is a great deal of fun as well, as
guests are served by an assortment of pirate characters, ranging from Peter Pan and Smee, to a parrot, and of course many
wenches.
“The additional cast have really taken the ball and run with
it. Everyone has seen the movies and knows the characters.
So being able to dive into it, I was surprised that people in other cities haven’t
done it as much here. The energy on this
floor is truly fantastic. I knew I was going
to enjoy this city.”
If you have never been to Jubilations
before, this is the show to experience it. We
asked the pair why you should come see it.
“For Murray’s hot Mom,” Devine said.
“And for Nicola’s hot son,” Farnell added,
before explaining that even if you haven’t
seen the first one, you will enjoy the sequel.
“There are little jokes that if they remember the first one
they will get it. If you didn’t see the first one, it is an entirely
new storyline and roster of characters, so they didn’t need to
see the first one in order to understand this one. It has those
elements that bring people in to pirate shows – sword fighting,
double crossing, arby darby, fog, thunderclaps, magic, dark
ominous lighting.”
“It is a good evening out. It is a good story, all of the performances are fantastic, there is not a weak singer, dancer or actor in the bunch,” added Devine. “The energy that the ad-cast
brings to it, out of all of the
shows I have done, this one
feels the most cohesive. Everyone who works here does
their best to set up their own
little facet of that world. As
the show is actually going on
people stop thinking about
their life and just get lost in
it for a few hours. I love going
to see shows like that.”
The Pirates of the North Saskatchewan II
Running until April 12th, 2009
Jubilations Theatre
www.jubilations.ca
31
Letters
Health
Letters to the Editor Do You Have What
it Takes?
Re: Mardi Gras Dance
I had the (dis)pleasure of attending the Different Strokes
Swim Club Mardi Gras dance on February 28th, and I have to
say, it was one of the most poorly put together events I have
ever been to. They charged people to come in the doors with
only 45 minutes left of the dance, ran out of alcohol, and were
obviously not cognizant of liquor laws, as I saw more than one
person getting served cocktails who clearly shouldn’t have had
any more. I’ve been to several other events in Calgary, and have
never had as bad of an experience as this one.
I spoke to a member of the group, and when I asked them
what charity they were supporting with the proceeds from the
dance, I was told “Oh, we don’t do that. This money goes to our
group.”
I can safely say that in the future, I won’t be attending these
events, rather sticking to other functions that are better run.
- Anonymous
Research Study
Are you a gay dad? Would you be willing to answer some
confidential questions about your life and about your family?
The purpose of this study is to examine the many ways families
headed by gay fathers have been created, explore how families
function, and learn about the relationship between partners.
The study consists of an online survey and will take approximately 25-35 minutes of your time. To qualify for the study
you have to identify as male, a father, and gay, bisexual or homosexual and have at least one child of any age; this child can
be biological, adopted, foster, step, or other child. You do not
need to be the child’s legal parent to participate. This study has
been approved by the University of Virginia IRB #2008-040700, and I am working with Dr. Charlotte J. Patterson who is a
Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia.
If you and/or your partner are interested in participating or
want further information please contact Samantha L. Tornello
(Principal Investigator) via email [email protected].
She will send you a web link that you can use to access the
study.
Thank you for your interest and I hope to hear about your
family soon!
Sincerely,
Samantha Tornello
Graduate Student
University of Virginia
(434) 243-8558
[email protected]
32
By AIDS Calgary
For the past year AIDS Calgary has been working as
a member of the Steering Committee for the “Do you
have what it takes?” national sexual health campaign,
for gay men, bisexual men and men who have sex with
men (MSM). Sero Zero, an AIDS Service Organization
in Montreal, has been the lead agency in this campaign
and has brought together the 8 members of the Steering
Committee. The 2009 campaign builds on the successes
of the past 2 national campaigns; Assumptions and Gay
Men Play Safe.
“To reinforce these previous messages of prevention, the present
campaign continues to disseminate information that will enable
men who have sex with other men to identify their own areas
(factors) of vulnerability that may lead them to sexual risk taking.
A resolutely playful, sexy, and provocative tone gives a particular
color to Do you have what it takes? — a new campaign based on
data and observations gathered by community groups as well as
on data from social research.” Source: http://www.what-it-takes.
org/en/campaign.html
The campaign works to assist gay men/MSM in understanding
different areas of vulnerabilities and options to reduce HIV/STI
transmission, while still maintaining a healthy and satisfying
sex life. The campaign materials utilize the slogan “Sex, Passion,
Romance, Adventure... Do you have what it takes?” with fun and
provocative visuals that encourage people to visit the website for
an interactive experience. The materials include posters, condom
pack inserts, table top displays with post cards, YouTube video,
computer wall paper, website and interactive self assessment quiz.
The website based quiz allows individuals to identify potential areas of vulnerability and provides specific strategies to reduce risk.
In some regions, the campaign will be complimented by offering a
sensual risk reduction workshop series, for gay men/MSM, based
on the Phoenix Project.
AIDS Calgary has benefitted tremendously from being a part of
this campaign process as it has allowed us to contribute a local
perspective to this national campaign. We would not have the
resources to do such a large scale and interactive campaign alone.
We will integrate the campaign concepts and materials into our
ongoing outreach via the HEAT Program. The HEAT Program has
been a longstanding service of AIDS Calgary. HEAT (HIV Education and Awareness Today) - is a program designed to address
HIV/STI education, awareness and prevention for gay men/MSM.
The program provides HIV/STI education, support and health
promotion, and free safer sex supplies, through outreach at GLBT
events, venues, and online.
We encourage you to visit the website, take the quiz, watch the
fun video, review the information and find out what it takes for
you!
Resources:
HEAT Program: http://www.aidscalgary.org/programs/heat.shtml
HEAT Facebook Profile: “Heat Worker”
Do you have what it takes? Website: http://www.what-it-takes.
org/en/home.html
Do you have what it takes? Quiz: http://www.what-it-takes.org/en/
quiz.html
YouTube Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbAi_QXDSPk
Phoenix Project: http://www.ateliersphenix.ch/
Advice
Dear Jody
Daughter Bashes Gays, Embarrassed Over Finances
By Jody Valley
Daughter Bashes Gays
Q: I am so mad I could just scream. I just walked downstairs
and my 15-year-old daughter, “Sara,” and her friends were telling jokes about “queers” and all laughing their heads off. Well,
I told them they all needed to go home and that I would not put
up with those kind of jokes at my house. My daughter went off
to her bedroom, locked her door and wouldn’t come out or talk
to me. Sara has been raised to respect all people and, in our
home, I have been openly gay since she was little. Several of
our friends are like aunts and uncles to her and she is always
happy to be around them and they do lots of things with her. I
am so distressed that she would talk like that and make funs
of gay people. I expected so much more of her and I am really
disappointed in her character. What do I say to her to make her
realize what she has done and to make sure she doesn’t do it
again?
- Disappointed Mom
I hate myself. I just don’t know where to turn. What can I
do?
- Losing My Pants
A: You need support during this difficult time. It is important
that you decide which of your family and friends will be most
supportive and tell them first. (I’m wondering why you wouldn’t
talk to your lover about this, but that’s a question for another
time.) Let them know how you are feeling, what has happened,
and what your fears are.
You might want to find a reputable credit counseling service;
there may be ways other than bankruptcy. Just remember you
are not alone in having financial problems. Many people are
going through this sort of thing, especially given the financial
problems in our economy.
Jody Valley spent 12 years as a clinical social worker. She worked with the
LGBT community both as a counselor and a workshop leader in the areas
of coming out, self-esteem and relationship issues. To contact Jody, send
an e-mail to [email protected]. Letters may be edited.
A: First of all I think that your daughter said what she did
because of peer pressure. Fifteen-year-old kids are under an
incredible amount of pressure to be just like everyone else and
conform to what others are saying and doing. When one of my
daughters was about this age, I made it clear that no prejudiced jokes—of any kind were allowed in our house. We also
talked about people’s feelings and why it wasn’t OK to tell jokes
or make fun of people different from us.
In spite of this she and her friends would occasionally tell
jokes that I didn’t approve of. After explaining to them that I
didn’t approve of this and why, I would hear them tell other
kids: “We can’t talk like that here, wait until we get outside”
– having taken “no prejudiced jokes in our house” very literally.
As my children have grown into beautiful adults, they have
embraced my values and all are working in human service
fields and are very open and defending of diversity of all kinds.
So, don’t be disillusioned about what is going on with your
daughter. Fifteen is a hard age; an age where she is trying
things out and discovering who she is. I believe that how we
conduct our lives and how we speak around our children
makes an impression on who they will become as adults. But
ultimately, there are no guarantees, and we can’t control what
they say, think, or do.
Embarrassed Over Finances
Q: I think I am going to have to take out bankruptcy and I
don’t know how to tell my family, my lover or my friends. I am
so embarrassed and the whole thing is making me so depressed
that I don’t know how to go on. I lost my job because of the
economy. My company downsized and I finally found another
job after 10 months, but it doesn’t pay nearly as much as my
old job. During the 10 months that I didn’t work, I maxed out
my credit cards and got a second mortgage on my house. Since
I have this job I have just gone downhill; my debt is getting
worse and worse and now there is no where else I can borrow.
33
Community Events
The Rocky Horror Show
Odd-Lot Theatre Co. brings Sweet Transvestite to Edmonton
By Will Sutherland
In 1975, the film The Rocky Horror Picture Show hit
screens around the world, and since its premiere
in London England, the sexy sci-fi cult musical
has taken the world by storm. It’s about Brad and
Janet, two seemingly innocent young adults, who
get engaged and head off to announce the news to
an old friend. On the way, their car gets a flat tire
and they go to a nearby castle for help. Little do they
know what awaits them.
The lesser known fact is that the highly criticized play The
Rocky Horror Show started back in 1973 with just under 3000
performances all over England making its debut on Broadway in
1975. Thanks to a new theatre company, the Odd-Lot Theatre
Co., Edmonton is able to bring back the old-school version with
a new take.
The Odd-Lot Theatre Co is a group of young emerging artists
who focus on presenting wild, outrageous and unique theatrical
experiences. Their main goal is to break down the boundaries
that divide a theatre performance and rock concert, and help
create more opportunities for other such youth theatre artists.
Originally hailing from Fort McMurray, the Odd-Lots won the
best of festival award at the 2007 Interplay festival for their
original puppet show Touch.
The Odd-Lot Theatre Co. states, “…the script is transformed
from standard musical to an energiz¬ing, exciting rock concert.
The goal of such a stylistic switch is to re-energize the sexiness
of Rocky Horror, which has become muffled by all the camp over
the years, without making too radical a reinvention in the show.
Some may be surprised with this interpretation...But, like always, The Rocky Horror Show will be a wild, outrageously, sexy
rock-musical.”
With the opening date growing closer and closer, everyone is
excited to see how this group of artists is going to amp-up the
original screen play.
This classic turned sexy rock-musical is directed by Brendan
Boyd with Music Direction by Tyler Collins. It stars local actors
such as Antonio Bavaro as Frank N’ Furter, Jess Wood as Janet,
Matthew Lindholm as Brad, Evan Johnston as Rocky, Lindsey
Walker as Columbia, Dylan Caddy as Riff Raff, Joleen Ballendine as Magenta, Darlene Arseneault as the Narrator, Brendan
Halama as Dr. Scott, Nina Hladio as Eddy, and also features
Bonnie Ings & Ryan Mackenzie.
The Rocky Horror Show will run from Wednesday, March 25th
to Friday, April 3rd, Tuesdays through Sundays, at the Catalyst
Theatre. All shows will be at 8pm except for the Sunday Matinee
34
at 3pm, where the audience is invited to participate by dressing
up and shouting out!
Tickets are $10 for students or seniors and $15 for the
general public, and are available at the door one hour prior to
performance, or at tix on the square.
This is leading up to be an exciting event as the Odd-Lot’s
first Edmonton project. Thanks to the local-star cast, the hype
only continues to build. Come out to show your support and
enjoy the wonderful show put on by members of our own community!
The Rocky Horror Show
March 25th to Friday, April 3rd,
Tues-Sat: 8pm, Sun: 3pm
Catalyst Theatre
8529 Gateway Boulevard, Edmonton
www.tixonthesquare.ca
Tickets: $10 students/seniors, $15 general
35
36
News
The BUTT Magazine Controversy
American Apparel Continues to Carry Gay Magazine
By Jason Clevett
In January of this year, West Vancouver mother
Trina Campbell went to the media with what she
described as the discovery of a porn magazine at a
local American Apparel store. She had been shopping with her 13 year old daughter and pulled the
magazine out of the backpack of a mannequin on
display. She then chastised the company for having
it so easy to find by children in the store, and boycotted the company.
”I pulled it out and I went to open it and it flipped open to a
double-page spread of two men having full-on sexual activity,
not just suggestive,” Campbell told CBC news. “I don’t think
this is something that the average person wants to see unless
they’re ready or going out of the way to see it.”
Why she went out of her way to see it by taking something
from a display mannequin is unclear. However after an initial
media buzz surrounding the store carrying the magazine in the
first place, on February 26th the company released a statement
confirming it will continue to sell the quarterly magazine.
“BUTT Magazine is a wonderful fashion, culture, art magazine and a popular seller,” stated company creative director Iris
Alonzo in the release. “American Apparel has always supported
gay rights and will continue to support its gay and gay-friendly
customers by carrying publications and products they appreciate.”
American Apparel stores first carried the magazine in 2005,
and in 2007 it was CEO Deov Charney’s mother who expressed
concern over its content. Charney wrote his mother regarding
her concern.
”BUTT is an important art magazine that I support. No question, that it is going to offend people and it is my feeling that
that is the nature of provocative art. At times, to make progress, you end up offending people. And people were offended
by many things I have done over the years. But I did what I
felt was right, especially from an art and creative point of view.
We are going somewhere with what we are doing, and no one
is required to buy it. Many people have told me how much
they appreciate our carrying the magazine. It has sold out in
some stores,” he wrote. “Also, because some moralistic anti-gay
forces opposed our carrying it within our company, I am committed to having it. I wanted our company to be open enough
to accommodate this kind of magazine, and if I don’t set the
precedent now, it could become too late to get that done later.
Sexual freedom, art, and photography are important to me and
I am standing firm on my support for BUTT.”
GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine spoke to company
spokesperson Ryan Holiday about the controversy. One of the
statements made by the mother was concern about it’s accessibility to children.
”The magazine is normally kept behind the counter or high
up in a display. We always try to shrink wrap them and they
have an 18+ sticker on the front. What a lot of reporters missed
in their rush to condemn this magazine is that the cover of
BUTT is not adult. What the woman saw was the photography
inside the magazine, after she removed it from the display and
after she opened and looked through the magazine.”
Surprisingly, American Apparel has received a lot more
support than condemnation. Reading through the comments
sections of some of the articles, people have been very vocal in
hoping the stores continue to carry the magazine.
“The comments sections of the articles was something we
took a lot of pride in, for the most part. I think it shows the
disconnect between the open-minded, rational public who
were skeptical about it all and the media who tarnished the
reputation of a great magazine without stopping to consider its
merits. BUTT isn’t pornography; it’s sold at museums all over
the world. The reason we wanted to come out and reaffirm our
support for this is that we didn’t want anyone to think that
we would abandon a publication we think is important just
because the media got caught up in a juicy story and tried to
shame American Apparel for its artistic choice.”
American Apparel has come under fire for some of it’s advertising, which is often sexual in nature, but less focus is given
to the positives of the company. American Apparel does not use
sweatshops and has above standard workers rights within the
company. They have also been a major supporter of gay rights,
including battling Prop 8 in California through their “Legalize
Gay” campaign.
“American Apparel believes that sexuality should be celebrated, not condemned. But Proposition 8 is just that, a condemnation of the basic right of marriage of an entire group of people
based on their sexuality. We’re proud to stand against Prop 8
and what it represents. In November of 2008 our Legalize Gay
shirt was originally printed to give to protesters at rallies and
marches. The response was so overwhelming that we had more
made and distributed them to our stores and put them up
online.”
Their website says, “Sometimes what we do is controversial
and not everyone agrees with our opinion. We hope that you
can understand that we’re sincere about this and that we think
it’s important, just like we are about Legalize LA.”
“In advertising, American Apparel makes decisions that other
companies are afraid to make. The models aren’t airbrushed
or Photoshopped into being something they are not. American
Apparel models are real girls and the company does all the
photography, so we stand behind it rather than contract it out
to some ad agency,” said Holiday. “I think the best way to put it
is that American Apparel does what it thinks is right and that’s
how the company is run from top to bottom.”
American Apparel Stores
Calgary – 17th Avenue, Market Mall & Sunnyside
Edmonton – 82nd Avenue, West Edmonton Mall
www.americanapparel.net
www.americanapparel.net/legalizegay
37
Interview
Looking back at Queer as Folk
Producer & Writer Reflects on Influential Gay Show
By Jason Clevett
From 2000 to 2005, the GLBT community and a
lot of straight women were glued to their TV sets to
watch the groundbreaking series Queer as Folk. Always thought provoking, at times controversial, and
definitely revolutionary, at this point it is still too
soon to know its long-term impact.
Canadian playwright Michael Lewis MacLennan was an
executive producer and writer on the show from season 2 to its
final fifth season. MacLennan recently chatted with GayCalgary
and Edmonton Magazine to promote his play The Good Egg as
part of the Enbridge playRites Festival that ran last month. In
addition to QAF, he has been involved in Godiva’s, jPod, and
Being Erica. He took some time to talk about his uniquely queer
TV experience.
“They actually fired all of the writers off the first season so it
was a whole new crop who were totally terrified and wondering
if you were going to make it,” he recalled.
As a gay writer, he has always included gay characters in his
shows - The Good Egg is his first to not include one. We asked
how he has found, over the progression of his career, the acceptance of gay characters, shows and people, from the general
public.
”I think there are two sides to that answer. There is a tremendous curiosity and appetite for that world. Queer as Folk
was the number one rated show on Showtime in the United
States. You aren’t anybody’s top rated show if you have a fraction of gay people watching it. In fact gay audiences were the
hardest on the show. People enjoyed it and wanted to watch it.
Women really responded to those characters without getting
too wrapped up in them, and emotionally identifying with the
woman getting treated badly by the man. It was a response to
good storytelling. The first year was more about, oh my god look
what we are seeing on television. But that isn’t going to keep
people coming back week after week. It was about getting involved with the characters. It did wonders to create tolerance.”
The other side of the answer is the gay community itself,
which gave the show a lot of flack.
“I can’t tell you how many people said things like, why do you
have to show gay people in bath houses? Even though it was
the first gay show that showed people adopting children, going
back to school, getting justice against violence, overcoming
addiction, using wealth to do good there would always be the,
why do you have to show the guy having sex. I was like, guess
what, you go to the bath houses. I know you do. They would reply, yeah I do but I don’t want people knowing that. There was
this sense of, represent us but only do it using certain parameters. It was a TV show. Whose life is like Gossip Girl? Shows
like that are way less realistic than Queer as Folk. Life is not a
TV show, if your or my life was on TV I don’t think it would run
for five years. “
What is acceptable for television and mainstream film has
certainly come a long way, but not as quickly as one would
expect, MacLennan says.
38
“I think that on the one hand it is getting accepted into modern popular culture. I find it is hard to point to a trend and see
beyond exceptions to the rule. Whenever I have pitched things
that aren’t even as gay as Queer as Folk, artistic directors at
theatre companies tend to blanche at them. It is sort of like the
Brokeback phenomenon. After that came out everyone expected
a rise in gay movies, but we haven’t seen a big Hollywood gay
film again until Milk. It is always seen as these strange exceptions to the rule but the rule never seems to change.”
He speaks from experience as a gay playwright, whose work
contained gay themes and characters.
”I have been a widely produced playwright so I am not saying
this out of sour grapes. But I have been told that a lot of my
plays would be more widely programmed if they didn’t have so
much gay content. So that was one of the challenges I gave myself with The Good Egg, to write about things I was passionate
about and were socially relevant and also a lot of fun, and to do
it in a way that doesn’t have any explicitly gay characters in it.”
Over the course of the five years, the show and its characters
matured.
“If you look at that first year, the things they were doing were
baser kinds of issues, there was more of a reveling of, look how
much we can scandalize our viewership. When we got to places
like being in a relationship where you are negative and they
are positive, or fostering a child, changing a career, divorce…
sometimes it wasn’t specifically gay issues. The characters
themselves were growing up. I think that the show, for those
that stuck with it, really allowed the characters to evolve. The
exploration of the issues got more out there.”
The final season was one in which, in addition to the characters’ growth, much of the show was very political. MacLennan
remembers the first meeting with the other writers to plan out
the show.
“This was when Bush was at the height of his evilness. We
were a room largely of Americans and we were really despairing
what was going on in the world. I said, we have the opportunity
right now to talk about things going on politically in the world
and within the gay community and exposing a lot of hypocrisy.
Nobody is stopping us so why don’t we be fearless? That last
season we really went for it in terms of some of the issues that
we explored and the discussions that we brought up. You are
never going to see that on any show in terms of how frankly
political we were. It exists as a bit of a time capsule in a way,
at looking at that period of gay history. I don’t think it is dated
yet but I think there will be a time when people will look at the
show and go, wow there was a time when it was an issue to
adopt? Those things will very soon be taken for granted.’
What is startling in retrospect about the final season is that
much of it focused on a battle against “Proposition 14” a fictitious threat to outlaw gay marriage, adoption and civil rights.
This was mirrored in several states in the 2008 election, most
publicly with Proposition 8 in California.
“There was that hypocrisy within the political thing where
people knew this would get votes. Even if they didn’t believe in
the issues themselves they knew it was politically expedient to
Comic Review
Dykes to Watch Out For
The Essential Alison Bechdel
knew in high school and
the campaigners on your
doorstep. These comics
grant a glimpse into the
lives of real-life Lesbians,
not the prime-time femmegirl on femme-girl niceties
portrayed on mainstream
television (L Word).
By James S.M. Demers
When Womannews
Newspaper began
publishing the assorted one panel
cartoons of the then
relatively new cartoonist Alison Bechdel in
1983, no one could
have imagined what
these rough drawings
would become. Now,
13 comic compilations
and later a bio comic
masterpiece, (Family
Fun Home) Bechdel
has made a name for
herself and created a recognizable visual representation of the lesbian community in celebrated comics
for close to thirty years.
The recent compilation,
The Essential Dykes To
Watch Out For covers the
comings and goings of 22 plus characters from the last thirty
years of print. You will laugh, oh yes, you will laugh, at the
unintentional ironies and too true coincidences; you will cry,
and feel the companionship.
Alison Bechdel has done her homework, so it is worth taking
the time to sit down and let yourself meet some new community
members as they have, in effect, become. I know they will always be friends of mine, and they remain just as enthralling to
me as they were on the hardwood floor years ago. Give a copy
to your newest baby dyke, they will appreciate it immensely.
I remember coming across a copy of Hot Throbbing Dykes
To Watch Out For on my best friend’s apartment floor in the
early High School years. The book married my two passions of
the time: dykes, and comics. I read it through cover to cover
without breaking, completely hooked on the characters with
my head swimming in politics. It was a special kind of love; the
fondness for these characters and stories never fails to lift me
up no matter how bad the political or emotional dramas were
playing out in my own life.
Dykes to Watch Out For is merciless in its political entanglements, the politics of the time are as real and present in the
everyday lives of the characters as it is in the minds and hearts
of the readers. Frequently the situations leave the characters
gasping for a breath of fresh air from the political circus that
governs them.
The characters in Bechdel’s panels span a spectrum of race,
gender, class, and political stance. Unique to the strip, Bechdel
represents many characters of colour and incorporates ethnic
traits by way of their personalities, not just by shading their
faces. You don’t often encounter that sort of detail in the comic
world.
Of course one of the more significant visual merits of
Bechdels strip is her representation of members of the lesbian
community as they are. Dykes have always had their own way
of walking and talking, their own methods of seduction and
frustration, their own views of the world and what it’s really all
about. They wear Birkenstocks and own multiple cats, work
at book stores, hold degrees in sociology, invest in sex toys
and drag kinging. They march in political rally’s, discover the
awkward middle ground between parental acceptance of long
term partners, wrestle with questions of artificial insemination, and the question of settling down at all. In short these
characters are your lovers, best friends, the rugby players you
f Looking Back at Queer as Folk - From Page 39
throw the queers under the train.”
Time will tell what impact Queer as Folk will have, on the gay
rights movement, popular culture, acceptance, and even other
television shows.
“We were the first show to have a gay marriage, to show gay
adoption, to talk about the whole arrangement with Brian,
Melanie and Lindsay. Now, what show doesn’t have someone
being a sperm donor? At the time those things had never been
done before. It is too bad that Queer as Folk doesn’t get a little
more credit for it. When it first came out it got a bit of a critical
drubbing and the gays were hard on the show. So far no one
is really judging it well but I do think it will play an important
role.”
“For me it is something that I am most proud of in my career.
It taught me a great deal about not only being a writer but
being a citizen and how you create something that is entertaining and compelling but also has some degree of social purpose.
Ultimately it is a TV show and people have to enjoy themselves
– good songs, hot bodies, juicy storylines – but within that
there’s ways of really tackling some of the other issues.“
39
Trans Identity
A History of Gender Variance in Expression and Identity
Part 2: The Rise of Hatred (the Middle Ages)
By Mercedes Allen
The advent of class divisions, the acquisition of
wealth and power, and the ownership of property fed
a movement toward patriarchal governing that ultimately became threatened by the existence of female
and transgender spiritual leaders. While patriarchal
societies were gradually able to synthesize and later
entrench the notion that females should be subservient, gender-variant persons posed a more puzzling
quandary, because of their uniqueness. It was for
this reason that patriarchal religions, which reached
their epitome with the Roman Catholic Church, felt
that they had to stamp out transgender people (and also gay / lesbian people, who were often thought
of as mixed-gender of a sort in early
societies) and demonize their legacy.
This helped to facilitate the development of
patrilineal inheritance, keeping the reins of power
in hands that grew ever more elite. The status of
women was degraded, and by so doing, leadership
also typically portrayed any sign of gender variance
as “less than male.” Dual-spirited gods and goddesses,
thought at one time to be doubly powerful, were turned
into contemptible, “weak” entities.
For the “Greater Good”
In 186 B.C., when Rome banned the bacchanalia (a pleasure-centered festival to Dionysus), an oppressive campaign
followed in the Greek territories, keyed on preventing the lower
working classes from seeking their own happiness and betterment, and pushing them to focus on the enrichment of owners,
employers and country, and / or to become willing to go to war
for patriarchal society. The system became an efficient, selfpropagating machine, later evolving into one in which war drove
the economy and power trumped reason.
Gender-transgressive behaviour and same-sex amoury,
although greatly reduced, still existed to an extent in Roman
culture, but was tolerated only tentatively - and only if it came
from the ruling class or coincided with the agendas of the
leaders and generals. Around 60 AD, Emperor Nero reportedly
had a young slave boy, Sporus, castrated (eunuching, in early
times, was believed to be the primary mechanism of gender
change - “eunuchs” ranged in form from males whose testicles
had been removed to those also given a total penectomy), and
took him as a wife in a legal public ceremony. Sporus was
from then on clothed as an Empress, and accompanied Nero as
such.
When factional battles would break out, homosexual and
transgender tendencies or loves were often used to justify the
destruction of enemies. In 218 A.D., Elagabalus (or Heliogabalus) became emperor of Rome, and was later assassinated,
mutilated and dragged through the streets (222 A.D.) before
being thrown into the Tiber River. Justification for the over-
40
throw was found in Elagabalus’ penchant for wearing womens’
clothing and makeup, in his reportedly prostituting himself, in
his offering a large sum of money to any physician who can give
him female genitalia (never claimed), and from declaring one of
his male lovers to be his husband.
When Constantine the First arrived in 324 A.D., his fusion of
religions (the Roman Catholic church was a synthesis of early
Christianity with Mithraism and worship of the sun god, Sol),
and his fusion of religion with the state, strengthened antitrans sentiment as it bolstered slavery (which had by then become the lot of most gender non-conformists) and set the stage
for feudal witch-hunts. These later evolved into the Crusades
and the Inquisition, in which as much evidence as possible of
early matriarchal and transgender-venerating paganism was
stamped out. Repressive laws which aimed to crush gender
variance and same-sex love evolved into part of the Corpus juris
civilis, the Roman body of law upon which
many legal systems were later based, including those of England and America.
This occurred because it was necessary
to the land-owners (chief of which was the
Roman Catholic Church) to break the spirit of
the serfs toiling on their behalf, thus pre-empting uprisings. Communal bonds had to be erased,
and the idea of communalism had to be demonized.
Pagan tradition was reinvented as “witchcraft,” and
quashed with impunity.
Transgender Saints and Joan of Arc
But in true subversive fashion, what couldn’t be completely suppressed was absorbed and reinvented to conform
with the new ruling ideal. Early cross-dressing heroes idolized by the peasantry were canonized, with the church reshaping the reasoning behind the admiration of those historical
figures, thus co-opting them. Saints Pelagia, Margarita, Marinus (Marina), Athanasia (Alexandria), Eugenia, Appollinaria,
Euphrosyne, Matrona, Theodora, Anastasia, Papula and Joseph
(Hildegund) were canonized transfolk who were female-bodied
but lived as male, along with bearded women, Galla, Paula and
Wilgefortis (Uncumber). Pope Joan (John Anglicus) appears
likely to have been a legend, but this legend was likely cultivated for the same purpose. There are no known male-to-female
equivalents of transfolk elevated to sainthood - MTFs suffered a
zero-tolerance agenda.
In 1429, at the age of 17, Joan of Arc dressed in male clothing, gathered several peasant followers and presented herself
at the court of Prince Charles, declaring that her mission and
dress were compelled upon her by God; said mission was to
drive out the English from France. The heir to the French
throne put her in charge of an army of 10,000 peasants.
Ultimately, the drive would be victorious, but she would be
abducted by English sympathizers (who called her “homasse,”
or “man-woman”) and turned her over to the Inquisition in
England. Although the French king had the opportunity to pay
her ransom, he felt threatened by the emotional sway she had
over the peasantry, and left her to her fate. Eventually, the
Inquisition decided that there was not enough evidence to have
her convicted of witchcraft, but she was burned at the stake
on May 30, 1431 for wearing men’s clothing, which the Church
Trans Identity
referred to as “idolatry.” The steadfastness with which she
refused to recant and revert to female clothing, and the fierce
loyalty from the peasantry over what her cross-gender expression symbolized to them paints a dramatic picture of old tradition resisting stubbornly under the boot of the now-entrenched
patriarchal authority.
Little by little, gender transgression became more limited;
at first to peasant festivals, and then one by one those festivals were outlawed. Halloween, or All Hallow’s Eve, which was
rooted in early matrilineal Celtic society (drawn from celebrations surrounding Samhain), is the most recognizable event still
surviving today. Some traditions from the pagan festivals of
Saturnalia and Bacchanalia survived, incorporated into Carnaval and Mardi Gras. The Celtic Winter Solstice (Christianized
as the “Feast of Fools”) did not fare as well, because it developed into a trans-inspired mocking of the Church.
Yet even the Church itself appeared to assimilate some
transgender motifs into its trappings, such as the floor-length
gowns, jeweled trappings for hierarchy and such (having a son
join the priesthood, after all, used to be referred to sending him
“into skirts”). It may also have been that trans priestesses had
somehow inspired the practice of recruiting Castrati for Church
choirs, even though Roman Catholic rule had technically forbid
the castration of youths.
While much of this change relates to medieval Europe and
rule that spread at times to Asia, the Middle East and northern Africa, similar transformations happened in some other
cultures, or were later imposed on those cultures by patriarchal conquerors or their influence. Native Two-Spirit tradition
would persist until the arrival of the white man in North and
Central America, and the genocide and culture subversion that
followed. Trans traditions did still persist somewhat in other
parts of the world though, such as Japanese Noh dramas,
which find their root in the harvest folk dance, dengaku. And
in a few “untouched” places, notably among the Polynesian
Islands (parts of Samoa, Tonga and Tahiti), communal and
trans-affirming traditions would survive to this day.
Next, Into the Modern Age...
Partial Bibiography:
Much of this had been compiled over time, and not all the
sources have been recorded. Some online sources have been
involved as well, although I search for more corroboration in
these cases.
• Bullough, Vern: Homosexuality: A History From Ancient Greece to Gay Liberation
• Califia, Patrick: Sex Changes: The Politics of Transgenderism
• Colapinto, John: As Nature Made Him: The Story of a Boy Who Was Raised as
a Girl
• Currah, Paisley; Richard M. Juang and Shannon Price Minter: Transgender
Rights
• Feinberg, Leslie: TransGender Warriors
• Fletcher, Lynne Yamaguchi: The First Gay Pope (and other records)
• Kessler, Suzanne; and McKenna, Wendy: Gender: An Ethnomethodological
Approach
• Rudacille, Deborah: The Riddle of Gender
• Walker, Barbara: various works
• Williams, Walter: The Spirit and the Flesh
Mercedes Allen is a writer who blogs at http://dentedbluemercedes.
wordpress.com/, has been featured on bilerico.com, PageOneQ and
others, and has also developed the website at AlbertaTrans.org as a
resource for transgender information and support.
La at. Ut nit lor sed euguer iurerat numsand ipismod del utat. Iquisim enim
ip eum dio diamcor amet wismodio dolore modit utpat.
41
Fundraising Photos
Gay Tech
RSS Feeds for News, Media and More
By Rob Diaz-Marino, MSc.
Here at GayCalgary, we are continually pushing
the envelope, providing our readers, visitors, and
community partners the many benefits that new
and popular technologies can offer. But with every
technological addition, there is an associated learning curve (and in some cases a price tag) that may
deter some from taking full advantage. We want to
help you keep up!
Most major media outlets, including TV stations and papers use Really
Simple Syndication (RSS), a method
of broadcasting news content to any
number of destinations: your personal computer or laptop, your mobile
device, even to your Facebook profile!
Some RSS publishers will only give
you a preview of the item with a direct
link to read the remainder on their
website, while others may give you
the whole shebang. RSS contains encoded information about
things like authorship, publication date, etc. and the main
body can contain text, images, links, and other multimedia
such as videos and sound. The cool part is that the information is live; so very soon after the source is updated, all
subscribers (aka. consumers) of the feed receive those updates
the next time their device refreshes.
So how is this any different from just going to a website,
like MSN.ca, and reading the articles there? Well, in a lot of
cases RSS feeds can save you the time and trouble of browsing
through volumes of information to find something that interests you – especially if you just want to see what’s new. Some
websites provide multiple RSS feeds (aka. channels) dedicated
to groupings of related content like sports, theatre, music,
and so on – so you only need to subscribe to the ones that are
relevant to your interests. Furthermore, you can use RSS to
collect items from many different sources and then read them
all in one place, which saves you from the usual routine of
navigating to (and through) your thee or four favorite news
websites.
Now, it’s all very well to know something like this is out
there, but how can you access it? The remainder of this
article will talk about a number of easily available ways to
subscribe to RSS feeds, followed by a summary of the exciting
RSS feeds now available through GayCalgary.com.
Accessing RSS
Internet Explorer and Firefox
Some websites embed information about available RSS feeds
in their underlying structure, but you wouldn’t be able to find
it without viewing the webpage source and sifting through its
guts. However, Internet Explorer 7 (and newer versions of the
popular browser) has an RSS icon that lights up in the presence of this information, providing a convenient drop down list
that will take you right to the feed that you select.
Furthermore, IE has a built in utility for viewing RSS feeds
that will display the RSS items nicely, and allow for simple
operations like sorting by title, date, category, and searching.
You can subscribe to the feed by clicking the “Subscribe to
this feed” link that appears in the RSS viewer, and it will add
a bookmark in the Feeds area of your favorites menu so that
you can easily return to it again.
Firefox provides very similar capabilities – just look for the
RSS icon beside the address bar. However, Firefox also gives
you the option to automatically pass the subscription off to
Microsoft Outlook, browse for a custom application of your
choice, or select a few other online services like Bloglines, My
Yahoo!, and Google.
One hopes that the latest versions of other popular web
browsers also provide these capabilities. Failing that, most
sites display an RSS icon that will manually take you to their
channel list. At the very least, you should be able to grab the
URL for the feed to use in another program.
Microsoft Outlook
One of the most popular mail clients for Windows users, newer versions of MS Outlook have built in support for
RSS feeds. In the Mail Folders sidebar underneath Personal
Folders, you’ll likely find an “RSS Feeds” folder. Right click
it and select “Add New RSS Feed…”, where you will then be
prompted for the URL of the feed. You can grab this information right from the address bar in Internet Explorer, once you
have navigated to the desired feed.
The nice thing about MS Outlook is that it adapts the feed
to a readily understood E-mail metaphor. That is, each item
in the feed is displayed as you would see a list of E-mails in
your Inbox. Even handier is the fact that unread items are
highlighted in bold, so you know what you’ve already read.
Windows Vista Sidebar
If you’re a Windows Vista user and haven’t turned off the
Vista Sidebar application that comes standard with the operating system, then you have a convenient little RSS viewer
at your fingertips. You may have removed it, not knowing
what it was, but once you have added it again the application
will automatically pull any feeds you have set up in Internet
Explorer or MS Outlook and flash updates from the sidelines.
You can configure which feeds from
these sources that you prefer it to
show.
Mobile Devices
If you own a Blackberry, Smartphone, or even an iPhone/iTouch,
you probably have a basic RSS
reader built in. If you search
around online, you are likely to find
nicer applications for free (a good
one we found is called “Viigo”), or
at a reasonable cost to purchase. A
42
Fundraising
Photography
Photos
Cheque Presentation at Twisted Element - Calgary (Photos
Courtesy of Aids Calgary)
ISCWR Pierogy Dinner - Edmonton
Fake Mustache Show at The Soda - Calgary
43
Fundraising Photos
Photography
ISCCA Drag Show at Calgary Eagle
ISCCA Drag Show at Money Pennies - Calgary
ISCWR Drag Show at Play - Edmonton
44
Technology
data plan will be required for retrieving feeds live from the internet, but on the bright side, they will likely be less awkward
and take less bandwidth than visiting the websites that they
come from. Even without a data plan, programs like AvantGo
will help you load up your phone with your RSS items when
you synch with your computer, so that you can read them on
the go.
Planning a trip to Alberta? Need to call your favorite bar
but can’t remember the number? If you don’t have a copy
of the magazine nearby, then this feed will definitely come in
handy! It provides you with address and contact information
for local gay bars and clubs, bathhouses, accommodations,
and restaurants – including any recent advertising images
– directly from our online business directory! This feed too
will soon be divided into Northern and Southern Alberta,
rather than by city.
Your Website or Online Profile
More Coming Soon
For those who run or maintain a website, who have access
to the underlying code and the knowledge of how to manipulate it, you can use an RSS feed to display relevant news
headlines to visitors. However, you will need something to
convert the raw RSS data to something more presentable. If
your website can run server-side code (PHP, ASP, ASP .NET,
etc.) there are pre-built libraries available for free to accomplish this. However, if your website is just plain HTML there
are still plenty of free services to do this for you - typically they
just ask you to embed a simple Javascript reference into your
HTML document. A quick web search will turn up any of this
information that you may need.
We hope to have RSS feeds for new photographs and discussion forum topics within the next month or two.
f Gay Tech - From Page 42
On mainstream profile sites like Facebook and MySpace,
where the content you post is often stripped of any HTML tags
that you may try to embed, you need to search for something
to do the legwork for you. On Facebook, we recommend the
RSS-Connect app – it lets you post several feeds to your page
so that friends and visitors can see what you’re interested in.
Similarly, MySpace has a whole list of apps to bring RSS to
your online profile.
Conclusion
RSS may sound cryptic and scary to the lay-person, but
once you get to know it, you soon realize how useful and
widely accessible it is. If you like keeping up to date on what’s
going on in the world, it can save you a lot of hunting around.
Of course, your access to RSS is limited to the technology that
you possess, and in the end, a good old print copy is accessible by anyone!
Was this article still over your head? Are you confused about something
else related to computers and other technologies within a GLBT context?
Write us an E-mail (or send us a letter if it is easier), and we may cover
your topic in a future edition of GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine!
Our contact information is listed under “Sales & General Inquiries” in our
Masthead (the black column beside the table of contents at the beginning
of this edition).
GayCalgary.com RSS Feeds
We’ve stretched the use of RSS feeds beyond their typical
purpose – to give you live information not just about news and
articles, but also monthly prize draws, community events, and
GLBT business information for travelers. This offers a whole
new way of tapping into Alberta’s GLBT community! Below is
a list of the feeds now available on GayCalgary.com.
GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine – Articles
A complete list of articles featured in the latest edition of
GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine. We still want you to
pick up the magazine or read the online edition, so we’ve only
provided a small portion of each article to stimulate your
interest. Follow the link to read the full article in the online
edition.
GayCalgary.com – Recent News
Read press releases and breaking news, updated weekly on
our website. Much of this information doesn’t make it into
our monthly magazine, so this is the only place you may find
it! The link provided will take you to the full article on our
website.
GayCalgary.com – Prize Draws
Get updates about the prizes that are up for grabs in our
monthly online prize draws.
GayCalgary.com – Calgary/Edmonton Events
Get a complete list of upcoming events directly from our extensive online community events calendar. Full event details
are provided, including event posters! This feed will soon be
divided into Northern and Southern Alberta, rather than by
city.
GayCalgary.com – Calgary/Edmonton Travel Info
45
Community Events
St Patrick’s Day Irish Auction
Annual Charity Auction Benefitting Beswick House
By James SM Demers
In the past three years, the annual St. Patrick’s Day
Irish Auction has experienced a great deal of growth,
says founder and organizer Sean Hogan. ‘The first
year I think we raised $900, the second $1000 and
last year about $3500.”
The fourth annual auction is slated to happen on Friday
March 13th at the Texas Lounge, where it has been consistently
hosted. The charity auction is poised to raise much needed
funds for Beswick House, Hogan’s charity of choice.
“One hundred percent of the proceeds go to Beswick house.
They are always in need of something, be it bed sheets, pots
and pans, little things. Government cutbacks have not helped.”
But he has high hopes for this year; everyone working on the
project has committed countless volunteer hours to make sure
it runs smoothly.
The SHARP Foundation (Society Housing for AIDS/HIV Restricted Persons) established in 1990 has been working within
the Calgary community providing a range of care to those afflicted with HIV/AIDS.
The foundation has been committed providing a variety of essential services including housing, health care and family/community support. They rely largely on donations and fundraising
from the Calgary Community to make their work possible. Bars
and local businesses have frequently gone the extra mile to help
support this important organization. For instance, the Irish
Auction is just one of many SHARP Foundation fundraisers
that happens at the Texas Lounge throughout the year.
Beswick House is one of two housing complexes operated by
the SHARP Foundation. Established in 1993, it provides 24hour long term palliative support, serving a maximum capacity
of ten people at a time. They seek to provide care to individuals
often with dual diagnoses of HIV/AIDS and other problems that
make managing the disease more difficult. They also deal with
the stark reality of providing end of life care - the opportunity
for someone dying to live out the remainder of their time in a
comfortable home setting rather than in a bleak hospital room,
can be a godsend.
The auction begins at 8pm, and will be hosted by Mystare
and Coco who promise to give a stellar return performance.
‘They did a fantastic job last year, we all really enjoyed ourselves,” said Hogan. ”Alan and Andrew (owners of the Texas
Lounge and Goliaths) have also been fantastic to work with!”
The auction list is available on their website, as well as on
Facebook. Hogan warns that bidding can get “pretty intense”
as there are some incredible things up for auction donated by a
many Calgary businesses and individuals.
”It was something I wanted to do and it has taken off. I’m
proud of it, and will continue to do it every year.”
St. Patricks Day Irish Auction
March 13th, 2009 - 8pm
The Texas Lounge (308b - 17th Ave SW)
www.stpatricksdayauction.com
f Cocktail Chatter - From Page 29
the time, and who doesn’t enjoy a string of olives for dinner? But
a martini is a mixed drink, necessitating more than one ingredient
to mix into it.
The working theory is that the martini started as a spinoff of the
Martinez, a cocktail made with sweetened gin, sweet vermouth,
maraschino liqueur and bitters (with a lemon twist). As tastes in
cocktails shifted away from sweet drinks, the “Dry Martini” made
with dry vermouth became more popular, and eventually most
everybody forgot about the bitters. Vodka didn’t become an option
until later.
Given the variations over time, you could rightfully order your
martini made with gin or vodka, sweet or dry vermouth or none at
all, bitters or not, olives or a twist – and you could find a published recipe to back it up. None are the “right” way to make a
martini, but I would encourage experimentation to find the way
that’s right for you.
While jumbo-sized martini glasses used in many bars provide a
lot of liquor for the dollar, by the time you get to the bottom half
you’re drinking room-temperature alcohol. That is bad. Or worse,
it’s a warm salt bath if you’ve got the extra-large-sized olives in
there that help to heat it up. The very classiest of bars serve their
martinis in very small, very cold glasses – with an additional
quantity of the drink in an ice-chilled container on the side. That
is lovely. At home, I use vintage (small) glassware and keep the
46
remainder cooling of the strained drink in the freezer.
Do not fear vermouth. Try it and you might find you actually
like it – but probably not the 4-year-old, mostly full bottle gathering dust in the back of your liquor cabinet. Use a fresh bottle.
Vermouth spoils like wine after opening, so buy small bottles and
keep them in the refrigerator to lengthen their life span.
Ice, too, is an ingredient in the drink. If you keep your vodka
or gin in the freezer, not much water will melt into your martini.
Dilution brings the drink down to a manageable level of alcoholic
strength to keep you from making that too-strong scrunchy face
that gives you wrinkles. A martini should be refreshing, not painful.
The shaken-versus-stirred decision is not worth the weight
given to it. Shaking adds ice chips and air bubbles that make the
drink look cloudy and taste fizzy, whereas stirring results in a
clear and smooth cocktail from the get-go. I prefer a stirred martini
when I’m at a nice cocktail lounge, but I do often shake them at
home. Not because it tastes better, but because shaking is more
fun.
Camper English is a cocktails and spirits writer and publisher of
Alcademics.com.
Community Spotlight
f Camp fYrefly - From Page 29
Luckily, the youth participating in Camp fYrefly are part of
the change itself in Alberta. I’m sure those who attended this
session of government will leave with an impression that they
are part of something great. Who knows, maybe even one day,
a member of the camp will become Premier of Alberta? But that
won’t happen unless this camp continues to thrive, and they
cannot do so without monetary support. Although the organization receives funding from the government (surprise, surprise!),
as well as businesses and private donors, they still need to create buzz about the camp and raise money on their own. For the
past few years, fYrefly’s main fundraising event has been a wine
gala, including a silent and ”Live” auction. The semi casual
event starts off with the wine tasting at deVine Wines, continuing on next door to TZiN for more wine & tapas, and then
finishing off the night down the street at Play with VIP access.
Tickets are $100 per person, with all proceeds going to support
the camp. The gala goes from 8pm-11pm March 7th, 2009.
From someone who’s benefitted directly from Camp fYrefly,
if you have the chance to donate or just to talk to someone
involved about this amazing retreat, do so with gusto.
Camp fYrefly
www.fYrefly.ualberta.ca
47
Classified Ads
Classified Ad Categories
Announcements........................ 100
f Anniversary ........................... 110
f Best Wishes........................... 120
f Birthday................................ 125
f Birth ..................................... 130
f Event .................................... 140
f Lost and Found ...................... 150
f Memoriam ............................ 160
f Obituary
Obituary................................
................................ 170
f Wedding/Union ..................... 190
Employment ............................ 200
f Adult Oriented ....................... 210
f Audition................................ 215
f Bar/Restaurant ...................... 220
f Business Opportunity ............. 225
f Help Wanted ......................... 240
f Office.................................... 260
f Sales .................................... 270
f Seeking Employment ............. 275
f Volunteer .............................. 285
Sales/Rentals........................... 300
f Antique ................................. 305
f Artwork ................................. 307
f Appliance .............................. 310
f Audio/Video .......................... 312
f Business For Sale................... 320
f Clothing ................................ 325
f Computer Equipment.............. 330
f Furniture ............................... 335
f Garage Sale .......................... 340
f Home For Sale
Sale.......................
....................... 345
f Home For Rent ...................... 347
f Home To Share ...................... 350
f Investment Opportunity .......... 355
f Musical Instrument ................ 360
f Office/Business Space ............ 362
f Pet/Animal ............................ 365
f Seeking Accommodation ........ 370
f Sale ..................................... 372
f Sports Equipment .................. 375
f Studio Space ......................... 377
f Vehicle.................................. 385
Personals ................................. 400
f Club/Group............................ 410
f Dating Service ....................... 415
f Erotic Massage ...................... 420
f Female Friends ...................... 430
f Fetish ................................... 435
f Internet
Internet.................................
................................. 445
f Male Friends ......................... 455
f Models/Escorts ...................... 460
f Phone Chat ........................... 465
f Sightings .............................. 475
Products/Services ..................... 500
f Aesthetics/Decoration ............. 502
f Artist .................................... 505
f Animal Care .......................... 507
f Beauty/Skin/Hair
Beauty/Skin/Hair...................
................... 510
f Body Art/Tattoos .................... 512
f Chiropractor........................... 515
f Cleaning ............................... 517
f Clothing/Fashion ................... 520
f Computers/IT......................... 522
f Construction .......................... 525
f Consulting ............................. 527
f Counseling ............................ 530
f Diet/Nutrition ........................ 532
f Education/Training
Education/Training.................
................. 535
f Financial/Bookkeeping........... 537
f Fitness/Training ..................... 540
f Food/Catering
Food/Catering........................
........................ 542
f Funeral ................................. 545
f Graphic/Web Design .............. 547
f Health/Wellness .................... 550
f Insurance .............................. 552
f Landscaping/Gardening .......... 555
f Legal .................................... 557
f Massage ............................... 560
f Medical/Dental ...................... 562
f Moving ................................. 565
f Musician ............................... 567
f Photography.......................... 572
f Real Estate/Mortgage............. 575
f Relaxation............................. 577
f Retirement Homes ................. 580
Destinations ............................. 600
f Accommodation ..................... 610
f Bar/Restaurant ...................... 620
f Culture .................................. 630
f Guided Tour ........................... 640
f Tourist Sights......................... 670
f Time Share............................ 675
f Travel ................................... 680
GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine - Classified Ad Form
You may submit the form below by post to:
To reduce errors, please print clearly and verify your
information before sending. All phone numbers listed
will be verified. GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine is
not responsible for errors in your ad submission.
#403, 215 14th Avenue SW
Calgary, AB, Canada • T2R 0M2
Addresses placed in the classifieds are NOT placed into
the map or business listing.
Or Fax it to (403) 703-0685.
Please make cheques payable to “GayCalgary”.
Category # (above):
Months to Run:
Name:
Address:
City, Prov, Postal/Zip:
Day Phone:
Night Phone:
Date:
Payment Method
Credit Card Info
(AMEX ONLY*)
You may also submit your classified ad online at:
http://www.gaycalgary.com/classifieds
Visit our online discussion forums to make a free posting
for housing or employment (appears online only).
If you have questions, please call us at (403) 543-6960
or toll free 1-888-543-6960.
Cheque
Money Order
Cash (only if paid in person)
Credit Card (fill out below or pay online)
Name on Card:
Card Number:
Expiry (MM/YY):
* For VISA and MasterCard transactions, please visit www.gaycalgary.com/PayInvoice.aspx
Headline for Ad (add $4.00):
First 25 Words - $10.00
Additional Words - 20¢ each
Invoice
First 25 Words:
Each additional word:
Bold entire ad:
Entire ad in capitals:
Headline:
Photo: (1.66”x 2.25”)
Border around ad:
Mail Forwarding:
$10.00
$0.20
$5.00
$6.00
$4.00
$15.00
$6.00
$5.00
Single Month Cost:
Number of months:
Full Run Cost:
X
=
Frequency discount:
-
3 Months=15%, 6 Months=20%,12 Months=25%
5% GST:
TOTAL:
48
+
=
Classified Ads
Help Wanted
240
Call for Talent &
Entertainers!
420
Enjoy the Pleasure of
Erotic Massage!
The Edmonton Pride Week Society is
looking for talent and entertainers
for this years Pride Celebrations:
Pride 2009 The Age of Aqueerius!
All interested acts can apply
at the E.P.W.S. web site. www.
prideedmonton.org no later than
April 15, 2009. Applications will
be reviewed at that time and acts
selected and confirmed.
BRAZILya Laser seeking two buff,
beautiful, hairless men to work
Calgary Women’s Show April 18th &
19th at Roundup Centre. Job entails
wearing only swim trunks (provided),
socializing with women and posing
for photos to be later posted on our
website. In exchange we offer gift
certificates for our laser hair removal
services. If interested, email:
[email protected] and
[email protected] so we can
set up a meeting.
Audio/Video
Erotic Massage
312
How Can We Pleasure You?
THE PLEASURE DOME - DVD, and
VHS Movies. Sales, and Rentals Toys,
Magazines, Mens, and Womens
Clothing, and Shoes. LARGE GAY, BI,
AND TRANSGENDERED SELECTION.
446A 16TH AVE NE CALGARY, AB,
T2E 1K2. (403)230-5030. Mon-Thurs
10am-10pm, Fri-Sat 10am-Midnight,
and Sun Noon-10pm. www.
pleasuredome.ca pleasuredome23@
gmail.com
Feel the enjoyment of erotic male
massage by Reynolds, three time
recipient of “Best International
Erotic Male Massage in Kuala
Lumpur-Malaysia”. Appointments
are available for gays, bisexuals, and
straight guys. For booking or inquiry,
call 403-604-1364. Also visit www.
roquemassage.ca for more info.
Internet
445
God loves you and created you gay.
Wisdom 11:24 - You love everything
that exists and hate nothing that you
have made. www.createdgay.com
Models/Escorts
460
Kirk. 27, 6’4”, 180, swimmer’s build.
9.5 cut, safe, clean, discrete, fun guy,
let’s play. In calls/out calls, private
downtown location. (403) 703-9354.
SHIFT works with adults in the sex
trade. We provide services for both
those who do not want to exit and
those who do. Shift provides: FREE
safer sex supplies, non-judgmental
counseling, and more. (403) 2378171.
Products/Services
500
ATM Service
Business Owners: Need an ATM or
already own an ATM. We Want to
Earn your Business. 780-455-8709
or toll free 1-866-640-8830. www.
minibanks.net
Call Massage For Health Clinic Inc.
403-660-2299.
Calgary Civil
Marriage Centre
Computers/IT
Weddings and Marriages.
Immediately or by Appointment.
All vows and paperwork included.
Witness available.
• Religion Free
• Standard & Specialized
Ceremonies
• Cross Cultural
• Same Sex GLBT-TTQ
Free Blowjobs!
On-site pleasure for your computer.
Personal and Small Business IT
Maintenance plans available complimentary can of air with every
service call. Contact William, My
Computer Hero, (403) 444-0700.
Consulting
Rork Hilford MC
522
527
Marriage Commissioner for Alberta
AKA (Justice of the Peace, JP)
Marriage Officiant
Commissioner for Oaths.
[email protected] • (403) 246-4134
Less than $58959 income & children
like to attend Private school? You
may qualify up to $25000 NONREFUDNABLE GRANT! 403-5903818, Anwar Rehman, Consultant
before March 30.
Animal Care
507
Financial/Bookkeeping 537
Custom horse care available for
one stallion or one mare on small
private breeding/training farm, NW
Calgary. $450+GST per month.
Reduced rate if you can help with
horses, farm, or computers. Phone
(403)932-2794.
Personal and Business Tax Returns,
GST, Payroll, Bookkeeping. Gay
Friendly. Free Pick and Drop Services.
Guaranteed Lowest Fee. 403-3138777, 200 - 2705 Centre Street NW.
www.activeprofessionals.com
Beauty/Skin/Hair
510
Body Hair Waxing,
Shaving or Trimming
Tired of the awkward, messy job of
removing body hair? I will shave,
wax or trim ANY body hair you need
done. Clean, professional setting.
Non-judgmental masculine friendly
guy. Massages half and full hour also
available. Email randyneal41@
yahoo.ca for details.
Laser Hair Removal
New Laser Hair Removal. Virtually
pain free. Start now and be hair free
for next summer. Offering 20% off
1st treatment or 30% off package
of six treatments. Free consultation.
Graphic/Web Design 547
Web Design
Need a website designed or
maintained? Business or personal.
Need a web banner or business cards
designed? Extremely low rates. Gay
owned and operated.
www.muddymoosewebstudio.ca
Health/Wellness
550
Traditional Chinese medicine custom
made for your unique needs.
Migraines, back pain, insomnia,
trauma recovery - why suffer? Call
today! Dr. Beverly Osachoff, R.Ac,
DTCM. Acupuncture and Health
Group (403) 253-3103.
Continued on Next Page f
49
Classified Ads
Legal
557
SOCIAL BENEFITS ADVOCATE:
applying/maintaining and/or
appealing WCB, AISH, EI &
CPP, Disability, Medical, Dental,
Recretation BENEFITS and MUCH
MORE. 403-313-8777, Anwar
Rehman, M.A., LL.B., D.L.L.
Canadian Immigration through
Same-Sex Partner, Skilled Worker or
Business Category also Student and
Foreign Worker process. Paralegal,
US Immigration and Commissioner
for Oaths. Staff CSIC Members.
403-590-3818
www.activeprofessionals.com
Product Review
Health/Massage
560
Massage in Edmonton
Registered Massage Therapist in
downtown Edmonton. Relaxation
and therapeutic massage. Insurance
claims are welcome. For appointment
phone Dwayne at 780-483-3190 or
780-918-5856.
Classified Ads starting
at just $10.00!
Fill out and return the form in this
magazine, or submit and pay for
your ad online at:
www.gaycalgary.com/classifieds
f Boeing Boeing - From Page 8
the pilot to get us on the air, but then the producers wanted
to run with it. It was a frustrating experience but also a lot of
joy. Tom and I are closer than the Bosom Buddies ever were
because we went through that and shared it as a day to day
survival in comedy. We thought we were in trouble.”
Playing a cross dressing character could have been a death
knell for many actors. Scolari went on to have a successful
career in theatre and TV, and Hanks is a 2-time Oscar winner
and three-time nominee.
“Tom has done alright since then,” Scolari joked. “We didn’t
have any problems after the show ended. We were antic. I was
never asked to do it again so it wasn’t typecast. I got in drag
for Betty White for the comedy awards a few years ago, but
that is it.”
While Stage West has been on a musically inclined kick in
the last few years, shows like Boeing Boeing brings its audience back to the origins of Stage West with guest stars and
straight forward shows. While I love the music reviews and
musicals, it is a nice change to see a show like this one grace
the stage.
Boeing Boeing
Running until April 19th, 2009
Stage West
www.stagewestcalgary.com
f Product Review - From Page 12
help of prescription aid.” The plugs are said to block out 32
decibels of sound, to be physician recommended, and made of
comfortable, soft power foam. We tested them out for ourselves.
Many gay men use Bathhouses as a low-cost option for accommodation while travelling, however, the loud music used
to blot out other (sex) sounds is not very conducive to falling
asleep and getting proper rest – it’s difficult for your mind to
shut off with catchy tunes invading your subconscious. We’ve
tried other earplugs made of yellow foam or plastic-coated
foam, but they’ve done such a poor job or been so uncomfortable that we ended up removing them before the night was
over.
The Zonk Out earplugs looked similar to ones I’ve tried in
the past, but they seemed to do a much better job than their
look-alikes. Granted they don’t give you complete silence (no
matter what the sound waves penetrate your head even with
your ears covered) but they reduce the noise and take the edge
off otherwise jarring song changes.
When put in properly, they felt comfortable and I had no
worries that they would fall out if I rolled over. As I drifted off,
I found that I was no longer aware of the music. By the time I
woke up, I was so acclimated to the volume that I didn’t even
realize music was playing until I took the plugs out.
I later tested them on the Greyhound and found that I slept
through two stopovers. I woke up on the approach to my destination to find completely different people sitting around me.
Talk about zonking out!
Zonk Out Earplugs are available for retail at $4.99 for a set
of 10. For more information, visit www.getzonkout.com.
f Western Cup 2009 - From Page 30
Toronto and even a few from the United States.
Finally, while they have everything fairly well planned and
organized, Apollo appreciates anyone wanting to step forward
and volunteer for this event. As always, it looks to be a great
weekend event and a fabulous way to usher in Spring.
Western Cup quick snapshot:
Thursday: Casino Night & Participant Check-In starting at
7:00PM
Friday: Sporting events running all day. Banquet starting at
6:30PM
Saturday: Sporting events running all day. Dance starting at
9:00PM
Apollo Calgary Presents
Apollo Western Cup
Social Events:
The Westin Hotel (320 - 4 Ave SW, Calgary)
Sporting Events:
Various locations, see website for details.
www.westerncup.com
50
Movie Review
How Green was my Rental?
Queer DVDs worth renting for St. Patty’s Day
By Matt Salton
Breakfast on Pluto,
Directed by Neil
Jordan/2005
If you were to imagine
Forrest Gump as an Irish
tranny growing up in the
70s, then you’ve got a
good idea what to expect
from the lead character
of Breakfast on Pluto.
Patrick “Kitten” Braden is
a poor orphaned boy left
in a basket and watched
over by kindly Father Liam
(Liam Neeson). Hmm,
Liam playing Liam, what
are the odds? That would
be like Cher playing a
character named Cher.
Back to the plot, Kitten is played by the beautiful Cillian
Murphy whose androgynous appearance works to his advantage here as he grows from a scrappy cross-dressing lad to a
glamorous wannabe seeking fame, fortune and her birthmother in London.
Kitten’s adventures are told as mini chapters from her
memoir and are often narrated by sub-titled sparrows watching the action from above. Yes. That’s what I said. It’s a real
“tweet”. To call Kitten naïve would be an understatement,
and if I had any complaints about what is by and large a fantastically entertaining film, is that Kitten is incredibly frustrating and emotionally distant from everything and everyone
around her, which makes it often times hard to sympathize
with her trials. While tragedy abounds in Kitten’s life, it’s all
just another exciting chapter in her memoirs.
Rating: 3 out of 4 leaf
clovers
Goldfish Memory,
Directed by Elizabeth Gill/2003
Before sitting down to
watch this nifty indie gem
on love and dating in Dublin, make sure you keep a
pen and paper or an excel
spreadsheet handy to keep
track of the myriad of
single characters looking
for love in all the wrong
people. The title refers to
the concept that a goldfish
has very little memory and so too do humans in love, who
seem to make the same mistakes over and over again. For
example, how many people do you know that have repeated
disastrous relationships with much younger partners and
swear every time to never again date someone younger? If
you’re reading this right now and think I’m talking about you
personally… I am.
I’m not about to get into each and every character in Goldfish Memory because there’s just way too many fish in this
bowl. Let’s just say the film covers gay, bi, lesbian, straight,
creepy, kinky, and conservative dating relationships between
primarily young, white Dubliners who often overlap in their
dating partners on their hunt for their soul mates.
The film also features a vibrant soundtrack that includes
Damien Rice and The Frames.
Rating: 3 out of 4 leaf clovers
The Crying Game,
Directed by Neil
Jordan/1992
Ok, first off, I’m not
THAT old however, I remember when this movie
came out into theatres
and the thing that had
everyone buzzing was THE
BIG SURPRISE! Well who
doesn’t love a surprise?
I’ll tell you who doesn’t.
Stupid shop girls with big
bangs who work at the
mall where you’re about to
go see a movie about a big
surprise in an hour, but
you stop at Woodwards
(twinks can look it up on
wikpedia) to buy a totally
rad sweater and the shop girl decides to make small talk
while she rings in your purchase. “Oh what movie are you
gonna see?” I tell her. “Oh don’t go see that, it’s about a
chick who’s really...INSERT SPOILER HERE.”
Needless to say I was pissed right off, put a Wiccan curse
on shopgirl, and went to the movie anyway. (The curse
worked btw, big bangs went out and Woodwards went bankrupt). In any case, the twist is a doozy and the movie is still
worth watching even if you have the foresight to know what’s
going to rock Stephen Rea’s world as a former IRA terrorist
who promises to make amends with the girlfriend of one of
his victims he had a hand in murdering. Look for Miranda
Richardson as a mean, lean IRA killing machine, Forest
Whitaker as a Brit, and Jaye Davidson as the lovely Dil who
has so much to give to the right man.
4 out of 4 leaf clovers
51
Music Review
Music Review
Annie Lennox, Rihanna, Maroon 5
By Rob Diaz-Marino
“The Annie Lennox
Collection”
For the first time, the
greatest hits from the most
successful female British
artist in pop music history
are available as a 14-song
retrospective. The Annie
Lennox Collection brings
together her finest solo
work and two new songs
available exclusively on
this release.
“I’m fairly grounded as a
human being,” says Lennox, “but there’s another part of me
that engages with the potentiality of music, melody, colour
and sound, and I’m profoundly grateful to have been able to
express myself through this exquisite medium.”
In the January 2008 edition, I reviewed Annie Lennox’s
album “Songs of Mass Destruction” – from which a few tracks
appear in this collection: one of my favorites “Dark Road”,
and the single “Sing” that was released on World AIDS Day
to raise funds for HIV/AIDS awareness. Lennox spoke about
these tracks - in fact she had interesting anecdotes about
every one of her revisited songs, from the filming of the music
videos to the influences that inspired her to create them in
the first place.
“The dark road is a metaphor for life’s journey, almost like
the Pilgrim’s progress. You could get led astray; you could
lose your way. There’s a future ahead and you don’t know
where it’s going. …The function of [Sing] was to launch the
SING campaign. I wanted to make an anthem. I want to
come back and write more SING theme songs and use them
as a vehicle. People talked a lot about the 23 artists that I invited to sing with me; it’s a call for solidarity. HIV/AIDS has
so much stigma and people are terrified to speak up. Singing
is a metaphor for speaking.”
Aside from that, the album features immortal themes like
“Little Bird” and “Walking on Broken Glass”, as well as slower
sentimental numbers like “Why”, “No More I Love You’s”, and
“A Whiter Shade of Pale”.
The two new tracks were instant favorites: “Pattern of my
Life” is a touching feel-good piece that reflects the ups and
downs in life and love, while “Shining Light” is a catchy and
upbeat ode to someone special - I haven’t been able to get it
out of my head for the past week!
“Good Girl Gone Bad: The Remixes” –
Rihanna
Good Girl Gone Bad: The Remixes is a remix album of Rihanna’s double platinum, chart topping Good Girl Gone Bad.
This collection features new versions of her hits, remixed
52
by today’s hottest dance
producers including Tony
Moran, Seamus Haji, Jody
Den Broeder, Moto Blanco
and Wideboys.
“Don’t Stop the Music”
has been my partner’s
proverbial favorite song for
quite some time now, and
it was on my own favorites
playlist long before we
received this new album.
The version they feature
is the Jody den Broeder
version – one of the better remixes that I’ve heard out there.
Meanwhile, the Wideboys remix of “Shut up and Drive” is
bound to be a crowd pleaser with its heavy bass, jagged
synths and shuffle rhythm.
It was my first time hearing “Umbrella” so I don’t really
have the original to compare to. There are two different mixes
on this album that book-end the playlist: The first one is
a bouncy, with a mean and sassy attitude; the last one is a
happy, light-hearted mix - both are utmost danceable!
Another favorite was the Jody den Broeder version of “Disturbia”. Yes, I have heard the original of this one on Makayla’s recommendation, so I can tell that they’ve transplanted a
dance beat and minimal melody aside from Rihanna’s vocals.
It’s better suited for the dance floor, certainly not a replacement for the original.
Tracks in the middle such as “Breakin’ Dishes”, “I Hate
that I Love You” and “Push Up On Me” didn’t appeal to me
quite as much, since they began to feel a little too groovy.
Definitely some kickin’ dance rhythms, likely good to play
while driving, but I found them far too strong for pleasure
listening at home.
“Call and Response:
The Remix Album”
– Maroon 5
Being musically challenged, I had no idea who
this group was until I
found a personal connection in the song “This
Love” – I’m not quite sure
where I had heard it, but I
definitely knew it. I found
out Maroon 5 is a multiplatinum Grammy winning
quintet, so as usual it was
a what-rock-have-you-been-under moment for me.
“I’ve always found it really interesting that a group of people looking at the same painting can all see different things,”
says Maroon 5 vocalist/guitarist Adam Levine. “That was the
idea behind this record – to take a few of our songs and have
Music Review
them interpreted by some of our favorite artists. We were really blown away by what they came up with.”
The album is a collection of 18 Maroon 5 songs as seen
through the eyes of artists Pharrell Wiliams, Cut Copy, Deerhoof, of Montreal, Cool Kids, David Banner, Paul Oakenfold,
and many more. While over half of the tracks didn’t appeal
to my tastes, the album was definitely worth it for the many
good ones that I found.
It kicks off with a frenetic beat-breaking take on “If I Never
See Your Face Again” by acclaimed hip-hop producer Swizz
Beatz. I quite liked this track – it was an excellent introduction to Maroon 5’s style of vocals. It finishes with Paul
Oakenfold’s angle on the same song – a dark and dirty dance
mix featuring vocals by Rihanna!
I loved Mark Ronson’s take on “Wake Up Call”, an upbeat,
almost humorous tale of a husband retaliating against his
cheating wife’s lover. However, the more serious David Banner spin on the same song, appearing later in the list, left me
pretty cold.
Questlove’s relaxed version of “Sunday Morning” conveyed
a sense of melancholy abandon despite its catchy rhythm. I
also highly recommend listening to Tiëtso’s dark dance mix
of “Not Falling Apart”, and the morose Premier 5 remix of
“Secret”.
f Movie Review - From Page 51
Cowboys and
Angels, Directed by
David Gleeson/2005
Do not judge this DVD
by its cover. You will get
the impression that this
is a nutty Irish comedy
about a sexy straight boy,
and the hijinx that ensue
when he moves in with a
flamboyant, but adorable
gay fashion design student. Wrong! The movie
starts out that way, with
all the predictable clichés
that include gay roomie
falling for breeder roomie
but, then he starts boffing
the blonde babe upstairs, and starts dealing drugs with a
seedy underworld gang. After a particularly unpleasant hour
or so of watching a downward spiral, our straight eye candy
gets by with a little help from his friends, and cleans up in
time to star in his roommate’s fashion show.
Gag.
1 out 4 leaf clovers
Matt Salton is the festival director of the Fairy Tales International Gay
& Lesbian Film Festival in Calgary. He can be reached for comment at
[email protected]
Movie rental courtesy of Zip.ca. Online DVD rentals carrying a huge
selection of GLBT themed DVD’s as well as standard brand new releases,
TV shows, classics and more. No Late Fees, No Due Dates, and 72,000
Titles. http://www.zip.ca
53
54
55
Queer Eye - Community Events
BEEF Bear Bash at Boots - Edmonton
56
Team Edmonton Mixer
Queer Eye - Community
Photography
Events
Calgary Eagle Anniversary Party
57
Photography
Lipstick Lounge at Buddys - Edmonton
Mardi Gras Drag Show at Play - Edmonton
Stardust Lounge at Boots - Edmonton
58
Queer Eye - Community
Photography
Events
Cabin Fever at the Calgary Eagle
EVM Concert and Womonspace Dance - Edmonton
Dueling DJs at Boots - Edmonton
Dueling DJs at Play - Edmonton
59
Fairytales “Harvey Milk” Screening - Calgary
Oscar Party at the Backlot - Calgary
So You Think You Can Dance Canada - Calgary
60
GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine #64, February 2009
61
62
63

GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine

Transcription

Similar documents

Edmonton-6.11.07 (Page 1)

print fast facts edmonton journal - Postmedia Integrated Advertising

puzzle - Dallas Voice

Twin Brooks - Community League

Newspaper Readership

Linens-n-Things Info Sheet

August 2015 - Community League News

management essentials - University of Alberta

PDF of this page - Peel`s Prairie Provinces

2010 Annual Report