GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine - February 2010

February 2010 ISSUE 76 The Only Magazine Dedicated to Alberta’s LGBT Community

FREE Interviews with:

TOM FORD God-Des & She

Kent Monkman The Triumph of Mischief at the Glenbow Museum

God Made Me Funky

The

Forgotten Male Victims of Spousal Abuse

Community Directory • Map and Events • Tourism Info >> Starting on Page 17

LGBT Resource • Calgary • Edmonton • Alberta

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GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine #75, January 2010

Table of Contents

5

Photography

Steve Polyak, Rob Diaz-Marino, B&J, Craig Taylor, Tiffany Thomas

Videography

Steve Polyak, Rob Diaz-Marino

Printers

North Hill News/Central Web

Distribution

Calgary: Gallant Distribution GayCalgary Staff Edmonton: Clark’s Distribution Other: Canada Post

Legal Council

Courtney Aarbo, Barristers and Solicitors

Sales & General Inquiries

GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine 2136 17th Avenue SW Calgary, AB, Canada T2T 0G3

Office Hours: By appointment ONLY Phone: 403-543-6960 Toll Free: 1-888-543-6960 Fax: 403-703-0685 E-Mail: magazine@gaycalgary.com This Month's Cover Painting by Kent Monkman Courtesy of Glenbow Museum

Proud Members of:

Publisher’s Column

8 The Triumph of Mischief 9

Shave Yourself for Mr. Right Five Fantastic Stubble-Stoppers

11 Tom Ford The Other Man

PAGE 8 PAGE XXX

A Land of Cross-Dressing and Role-Swapping

13 Chelsea Boys 14 Out of Town

Sydney and Mardi Gras Exploring Mardi Gras In The Land From Down Under

17 Directory and Events 24 Beautiful Thing

An Urban English Fairytale In Alberta

25 Nevada’s Legal Brothels Go Male, But Not Gay 26 Adult Film Review

PAGE 11 PAGE XXX

Writers and Contributors

Chris Azzopardi, Dallas Barnes, Dave Brousseau, Sam Casselman, Jason Clevett, Andrew Collins, Rob Diaz-Marino, Jack Fertig, Glen Hanson, Joan Hilty, Leah Kelly, Stephen Lock, Allan Neuwirth, Steve Polyak, Pam Rocker, Ara Shimoon, Romeo San Vicente, Jerome Voltero, Dan Woog, and the GLBT Community of Calgary, Edmonton, and Alberta.

Fitness: Not Always a Shallow Endeavour

Bear Hunt, Dirty!

27 Q Scopes

“Don’t worry, Aries!”

28 Deep Inside Hollywood Kerry and Kristin sittin’ in a tree…

29 Mariah and Me

How the Diva Changed a Life–and her Own

30 LGBT Hockey

Help Give Canada’s National Sport a Queer Slant

30 Running for the Fun of It Calgary and Edmonton Frontrunners

PAGE 29 PAGE XXX

Publisher: Steve Polyak Editor: Rob Diaz-Marino Sales: Steve Polyak Design & Layout: Rob Diaz-Marino, Ara Shimoon

February 2010

31 Slapshotolus Edmonton Rainbow Business Association

Olympic Bronze in a Unique Form

32 The Biological Case for Transsexuality

International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association

34 Fundraising Photos 36 Exploring Leather Relationships Part 2 of 3: “Daddies” and “Boys”

National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association

37 From Spectator to Torch Barer Steve Parent-Korbie Fulfills a Childhood Dream

PAGE 31 PAGE XXX

An Overview and Analysis

Continued on Next Page  GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine #76, February 2010

Table of Contents  Continued From Previous Page

38 Queeries

Valentine’s Advice, Groping & Closet Cases

39 The OutField

Sweet turnaround for Peggy Beck

PAGE XXX 37

40 Get Your HEART On

Bad Romance Gives New Saturday Night Options

41 Bitter Girl 42 A Couple of Guys

43 The Forgotten Male Victims of Spousal Abuse

45 Team Edmonton Mixer

Sport and Socializing Promises to be Sensational

45 LGBT Dodgeball

New Sport Enters Western Cup

PAGE XXX 43

46 Music Review

Unbroken, Animal, Stronger with Every Tear

47 Alberta Bowling

The Rainbow Riders & Northern Titans

48 Classified Ads

51 Wanna Dance?

GMMF brings the Funk to Calgary

52 Movie Review

St. Trinian’s and She’ll Cut a Bitch

53 Truth Equals Beauty

PAGE XXX 53

Rodeos and the Olympics, Paul Wong Style

54 God-Des and She An Interview with Lesbian Legends

58 Queer Eye - Community Events

Magazine Figures Monthly Print Quantity:

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Proof of monthly figures are available on request.

Distribution Locations: Calgary: 150 Edmonton: 130 Other Alberta Cities: 10 Other Provinces: 30

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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. This magazine 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.

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Editorial

Fitness: Not Always a Shallow Endeavour Publisher’s Column

By Rob Diaz-Marino In this month’s edition I am amazed to see how many sports articles we are publishing. With Apollo Western Cup coming right up at the beginning of April, I suppose this is appropriate. But I remember a time when our magazine had trouble finding anything sports-related to talk about.

You know there are two sides to the coin when it comes to magazines publishing articles about sports activities and fitness. There are those sporadic “get fit so you can get laid” pieces that pop out of nowhere to make you feel guilty for not taking care of yourself. They tend to recommend doing boring exercises that build muscle and trim fat, but really do little else for you. In a way it’s like strapping a bag of oats to your face - all you have to do is chew. There are so many fun and interesting ways to get the exercise you need, and while they may not replicate the repetitive motions required to build those unnaturally large muscles, they will keep you just as fit and happy to boot!

That’s why, for the past several months leading up to Western Cup, we have published articles about the many different LGBT sporting subgroups part of Apollo Friends in Sports, and Team Edmonton. There is an overwhelming array of choices depending on your level of skill and desired activity, and unlike the ol’ bag of oats, these activities also entertain your brain as you build skill and make like-minded friends.

So if you find that you’re having difficulty staying active, and you want to do something about it, then you have a choice.

You can go on the exercise binge that you read about at a random time in a random magazine out of panic for not feeling good about yourself, do something boring in the privacy of your own home, and eventually lose the motivation to keep going with it. Or you can go out to any number of weekly sporting events in Calgary or Edmonton with your LGBT peers and have some fun, become a better player, and meet people who can help keep you motivated.

Cowboys and Indians This month’s cover may strike you as deliciously controversial. In the spirit of Valentines month, surprisingly this is the first gay kiss that we have ever featured on our cover! Furthermore, this passionate kiss is between a cowboy and an Indian, which I see as an extremely powerful portrayal of love and peace between two groups that underwent a bitter struggle in our country’s past.

This is just one of several outrageous paintings by Kent Monkman (see page 8) being featured at Calgary’s own Glenbow Museum until the end of April. Accompanying Monkman at the Glenbow is the work of an award winning multimedia artist, Paul Wong (see page 53), whose video presentation entitled 2 Hot 2 Handle is on display in a special room on the 3rd floor. The presentation features photographs from last year’s ARGRA rodeo in Strathmore.

We attended a reception at the Glenbow, hosted in association with Fairy Tales Film Festival. Wong presented some brutally honest films from his collection of works that

he hadn’t previously released, which drew mixed reactions from the audience. One piece featured a computer-generated arrangement of a whole year worth of Wong’s photographs, flashing by at 1000 frames per minute. While the effect was interesting at first, the sheer duration of the hyperactive slideshow left me with a headache, and Steve at the point of feeling nauseous. You see, it’s true that art can make you feel!

Nevertheless, Wong’s installation makes an interesting addition to the Glenbow. The wall leading to the entrance of the presentation room is painted as a rainbow flag, and the presence of photographs from the ARGRA rodeo on display in such a popular mainstream venue is just fantastic – it’s bound to blow a few minds. While I anticipate the Glenbow will receive complaints from those unable to handle such a public acknowledgement of queer history, the fact remains that history is immutable no matter how unpopular some may find it, and it’s wonderful that the Glenbow understands this...and us.

Here We Go Again!

The Calgary Eagle hosted the Western Canadian Leather Sir/Leatherboy contest on the 30th, and GayCalgary was out in full force to cover the event. While Steve took photos, I stayed behind the video camera to make a recording of our local contestants and out of town judges performing certain acts of fetishy intrigue on stage.

If you recall in my column last year, I spoke about how one of the contestants gave himself a razor blade tattoo, and the sight of blood caused me to pass out with a flash fever. This year I was pretty determined not to make an ass of myself in front of the panel of distinguished (and in some cases, downright sexy) leathermen judges; determined to prove I can handle, at the very least, witnessing anything else that is legal to do in a bar.

The fantasy scene for Dakota, the Leather Sir contestant, had him using an army knife to cut the clothes off his boy participant René.

He had sliced into René’s jeans and shredded them enough to tear them off completely, when I saw red rivulets down his leg. At first I thought they had just used body paint under the jeans to simulate blood for when they came off...but then I realized the cuts were real, and one was pretty deep. René was a trooper and although this was not planned, they kept going, but I was no longer watching. They finished the scene and treated him for his wounds (he later shrugged off the nine stitches they put in at the hospital as if it was nothing), but I knew I was done for, a ticking timebomb no matter how hard I tried to put the sight of blood out of my mind.

So resigning myself to repeat history, I leaned forward and rested on my knees as I felt my ears start ringing and body go numb.

It was an awful buzzing sensation and I kept expecting it to worsen or to feel some sort of sharp pain from my insides, but somehow I remained semi-conscious. Last year I distinctly remember losing track of time, but not so in this instance.

Continued 

GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine #76, February 2010

 Editorial - Cont’d Lady Fawn who was sitting beside me at the time, noticed me in distress and arranged for a bottle of water. She told me, of all the people to pass out in the presence of, the leather crowd was probably the most capable of helping - being equipped to handle “dungeon emergencies” and all. Steve was in town this time, and made sure I didn’t fall off the bench until I had recovered. When the feeling passed, I sat up again and copious amounts of sweat poured down my chest and back. I saw Johnathan, last year’s Leather Sir winner and notorious Calgary Eagle owner, explaining to guest judge, 2009 International Leather Sir, what just happened to me.

No doubt this included mention of the same occurrence last year, and they both looked at me with expressions as if to say, “that’s so cute!” So once again the big tough important leathermen think I’m silly and adorable, and I’m at a loss to say whether that is a good or a bad thing.

Speaking of adorable (and changing the subject from my personal humiliations), Edmonton resident Curtis took the title of Leatherboy after a compelling boot-licking fantasy scene, a woofy jock-strap display, and some innocent but cheeky responses during the Q&A period. Curtis recently adopted the bearded bear-look and has been working it with great success.

His other half Max, who participated as a judge, I’m certain was very proud of his normally shy hubby.

Dakota got in by a slightly narrower margin, but passed the judging criteria nonetheless. He is an older gentleman who I’ve seen quite frequently at the Eagle for leather events and fetish demonstrations, and is definitely worthy to represent our region in the next phase of the competition. The 2010 Western Canada Leather Sir and Leatherboy go on to compete for the international titles.

Just...no more blood, mmkay? I’m getting light headed all over again just thinking about it.

This Month There are a couple of exciting things happening this month that you should be aware of: The Calgary Eagle will be undergoing a makeover in time for their 8th Anniversary. The bar anticipates they will be closed from Sunday the 14th until and including Friday the 19th, but check their website for updates. The Anniversary Party is scheduled for February 20th, so mark your calendar to go down and be among the first to see what has changed.

ARGRA is hosting their annual Sleigh Ride the afternoon of the 27th instead of their monthly dance. There is limited availability so if you want to take part, make sure you book early through their website (www.argra.org). It costs $25 per person, which includes the sleigh ride, hot dogs, hot chocolate, and a cozy bonfire.

Calgary has a new dance party to stir things up. Bad Romance Entertainment has come onto the scene with a special Valentine’s party scheduled for Saturday, February 13th. Read the article on page 40 for more information, and if it sounds like your thing, make sure to get you remember to pick up a BRE membership.

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GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine #76, February 2010

GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine #76, February 2010

Arts

 “Trappers of Men” painting by Kent Monkman, at the Glenbow Museum until late April

The Triumph of Mischief A Land of Cross-Dressing and Role-Swapping

By Pam Rocker At first glance, some of Kent Monkman’s paintings could remind of you of something that you’ve seen in your grandmother’s living room.

Reminiscent of 19th century oil paintings of the Wild West, his work is exceptionally detailed, portraying landscapes, cowboys, Aboriginals. However, a closer look reveals something that might make Grandma spill her tea: a two-spirited libertine, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, wearing nothing but a long white fur coat lined in pink satin, and kneehigh pink leather boots. This particular painting, Charged Particles In Motion, gives us a taste of what we can expect in Monkman’s upcoming exhibition at the Glenbow Museum.

The Triumph of Mischief contains a collection not only of Monkman’s oil paintings, but also his sculptural spaces, objects, films and photography from 2003 to present. His version of the Old West symbolizes the unknown stories of personal encounters between the European and First Nations in North America. He uses humour, eroticism, and evocative allegories to re-tell and disrupt historical stereotypes around sexuality, identity, and narratives about Aboriginal culture.

Monkman, a multidisciplinary Canadian artist of Cree ancestry, knew from an early age that he was meant to create and tell stories. “I had a strong artistic identity at a very young age. From the time I was 5 or 6, I decided I was an artist and that was that. My parents were great about encouraging all aspects of my artistic path and I feel really lucky.”

A great muse for Monkman’s work is his performance alter-ego, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle (punning ‘mischief and ‘egotistical’), who also appears in several of his paintings and films. “Sometimes I find the works by her, sometimes I find them

by myself,” says Monkman. “She has such a strong presence in the work, they are all sort of self-portraits of her.”

The process of finding her grew organically. “The performance part of my practice grew out of painting and similarly I developed my alter-ego in my painting. It evolved to the point where I knew I had to bring her to life via live performance and video work.

There’s a safety in how far-reaching she can be in the painting; in a live performance, that safety is removed, but I knew that’s what I needed to do.”

Miss Chief performed live for the first time in 2004 at the McMichael Canadian Arts Collection in Ontario, where Monkman was invited to do a weekend residency. “The place had become known for being a little stuffy, and I felt that it needed to be shaken up a bit. Some of their policies about programming seemed to be going backwards in time, so I knew this was the place for her to come out.”

The Triumph of Mischief has been specifically designed to allow Monkman to work collaboratively with different curators at each exhibit. Ben Portis is the guest curator for the exhibition at the Glenbow Museum.

“One of the things that the Glenbow is doing is making evident links between Kent’s work and portrayals of the West and Aboriginal life in the 19th century that is already evident in the historical section of its collection. We’ve pulled out a number of paintings by First Nations artists who lived in the plains either in Alberta or the U.S. in the 1800’s,” says Portis.

“A great thing about working with the Glenbow is that it’s not just passively embracing the work. Sometimes, this kind of provocational art can go somewhere and be allowed to sing its own tune with little elaboration – either it hits or misses its audience. The tone at the Glenbow is really going to grapple with the implications of the artwork on several levels; being a challenging expression in terms of indigenous identity, gay identity, and contemporary culture.”

Portis gained a deeper appreciation for Monkman as an artist, as he became more and more familiar with his work. “I came into this exhibition with some awareness of Kent and his work.

I had seen two prior editions of this show [TOF] and there were

Continued on Page 27 

GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine #76, February 2010

Review

Shave Yourself for Mr. Right Five Fantastic Stubble-Stoppers

The Razor: ShaveMate All in One

By Rob Diaz-Marino Going on a date this Valentines day, it’s important to make a good first impression. Whether you sport a beard, goatee, or no facial hair at all, you can send the message that you take good care of yourself by culling your stubble. True, the 5 o’clock shadow can make you look like a bad boy, but this isn’t your average hook-up – you’re playing for keeps here!

Over the past few months we have received an influx of shaving products to review, and it only seemed appropriate to tell you about them for this, the month of love and romance. So take a gander at these products, some of which you might have been previously unaware. Learn a bit about them through my experience, and then go get ‘em loverboy!

What a neat idea, a razor and shaving cream canister in one! It’s ideal for travelling, and you won’t need to fumble with a separate can.

The dispenser has a twist lock to ensure no cream escapes by accident if it gets squished in your luggage. The six blades offer a far superior shave over your typical disposable travel razors. Though it has somewhat of a low-grade plastic feel, you get 3 in a packet and it comes with its own shower hook!

Obviously I reviewed the men’s equivalent of the shaver, the Titan 6, but I used it to test a variety of shaving creams. While I was able to obtain the same end result, the process of getting there was the make-or-break distinction.

Cream Criteria Nivea for Men: Active 3

Scent – did it offer a pleasant scent that might draw in the same sex, or did it smell like cheap crap?

Scent: Smoothness: Removal: Visibility: Economy:

Smoothness – did it keep the razor lubricated enough to be a painless shave, or was it a razor-burn nightmare?

    

“Active 3” refers to the fact that it is 3 products in one: shampoo, shave, and body wash! By far it offered the smoothest shave, and one of the nicer, more distinguished scents. While it lubricated well for shaving, this same trait made it difficult to wash off completely, even under the bombardment of water in the shower. Nevertheless, it’s hard to beat the portability; take it with your favourite razor and you’ve got your showering essentials covered.

LUSH: Prince Scent: Smoothness: Removal: Visibility: Economy:

    

With essence of triple orange blossom, this luxury LUSH creation had a pleasant smell of subdued creamsicle. As I drew the razor across my face, I could tell the cream was staying put, but lubricating, it was not – in fact it seemed more of a waxy texture that was making the blade stall and lurch, and it was difficult to wash off. To solve this dilemma, the instructions suggest soapy water to rinse your razor and clean your face afterward, which may or may not prove to be an inconvenience. I myself tend to use plain warm water, so I didn’t really get along with this concoction.

Removal – did it wash off cleanly when I was done, or did I have to scrub like a son’bitch?

Visibility – could I see and sculpt my beard underneath, or was I braving the fog of war?

Every Man Jack Scent: Smoothness: Removal: Visibility: Economy:

    

The Every Man Jack shave kit and travel kit make for nice classy gifts that are actually affordable for the every man, and come with far more than just the shaving cream. Both kits come with tubes of the following: face wash, shave cream, face lotion, SPF 15 lip balm, and SPF 15 face lotion. The travel kit goes one further with a tube of 2-in-1 shampoo and conditioner, while the shave kit provides a handsome travel bag that you might use with the travel kit.

The shave cream was non-frothy, making it easy to see my underlying facial hair for better sculpting accuracy. It lubricated moderately well, and had such a light scent of mint that it was almost undetectable. On the plus side, it won’t interfere with your cologne or after shave, but on the downside...you might need cologne or aftershave. It took a few rinses to remove, but nothing unreasonable.

Continued 

GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine #76, February 2010

While You’re At It...

ShaveMate All in One

Shave the Planet

Scent: Smoothness: Removal: Visibility: Economy:

By: LUSH If you find the triple orange blossom of Prince too fruity, Shave the Planet offers a more muted sandalwood scent.

We reviewed the Shave the Planet gift box in our March 2009 edition.

Diva 6 By: ShaveMate Pretty much the same as the Titan 6 - 3 in a pack, with built in shaving cream - but in bright pink! The obvious choice for lipstick lesbians and drag divas on the run.

    

This is, of course, the cream that is dispensed out of the handle of the ShaveMate All in One Razor.

The cream has the same consistency of the cheap travelsized shaving creams: it smells synthetic, but is super easy to wash off, which might not be such a good thing. Its frothy consistency meant I was sculpting in the dark on the first stroke, and scraping up a storm after that­—it really didn’t stick around to lubricate.

Priced roughly the same as the Every Man Jack shave kit, you’re paying purely for the convenience in this novel product. They say there is enough in each razor for 10 shaves, so a pack will keep a non-fussy daily shaver (un)covered for about a month.

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GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine #76, February 2010

Interview

Tom Ford

 Tom Ford

The Other Man

By Chris Azzopardi All you know about Tom Ford isn’t it. The style-savvy man we’re familiar with through the fashion-world lense – as Gucci’s former creative director for 10 years – is more than that debonair hunk-and-a-half. Much of Ford’s unknown facets are in his directorial debut, A Single Man – award bait starring Colin Firth as George, a suicidal gay man suffering from his longtime partner’s death.

Ford spoke with us about reactions to his first film, what the movie says about him personally and why – as a gay man – he’d have no problem taking a whiff of a woman.

GayCalgary: The film has picked up numerous award nods and lots of Oscar momentum. You’re floating on cloud nine now, aren’t you?

Ford: I’m on cloud nine because everyone has responded really almost unanimously positively. That’s a great feeling, when you know that you’ve created something that speaks to a lot of people.

GayCalgary: Is this attention giving you a push to pursue film further?

Ford: Well, I’m so stubborn that I was going to do more no matter what (laughs). I never intended to make just one film; I always intended that this one would be my first. So even had I really failed, I would be doing it again. I can’t wait to get started on the next one.

GayCalgary: Despite the universal, humanistic quality of the film, it still felt pretty gay, though you don’t like to call it that, right?

Ford: I hate categorizing things. I wanted to depict a gay relationship in a very matter-of-fact way, and that was one of the things that always drew me to Christopher Isherwood’s writing, because when he wrote this book in 1964, it was a landmark piece of gay literature. It was so matter-of-fact. There was no issue.

I’ve lived with the same man for 23 years, and much of the film is taken from my own life. I will have someone still say to me “your lifestyle.” And I say, “My lifestyle? What is that?” I live with somebody I love. We make dinner at home together. We lie around and read books and watch television and walk our dogs and go on vacation and argue occasionally – that’s a lifestyle? That’s what I meant. That’s what I wanted to depict – just a very straightforward love story.

GayCalgary: While making the film, did you think about how you would react if you were in George’s shoes?

Ford: I was in George’s shoes, but it wasn’t over the loss of a lover. It was really the loss of a career, and I had made a major

shift and left something that I had been doing for 15 years. All of a sudden, I had no identity and I had no voice in contemporary culture, and it fell at a time when I had what is really a very classic midlife crisis.

I was lucky enough to have everything early in life, including a great relationship and everything the material world can offer – a successful career, lots of money, a great life, friends – and yet I couldn’t find a certain kind of happiness. When I left Gucci, it just really pushed me into a kind of tailspin because I had no way to express myself, and I was really grieving that. That was my relationship to the book.

GayCalgary: So reading Christopher’s book later on in life influenced you differently than when you first read it?

Ford: Oh yeah. Reading it when I was young, I was living in L.A. and I was single and I fell in love with George. I loved him as a character, and it was so perfectly written I really imagined I might just run into him somewhere. And I did run into him in his real-life form as Christopher Isherwood.

When I reread the book three-and-a-half years ago, I was relating to what George was going through and to his somewhat suicidal thoughts, because he couldn’t figure out why he’s living, what’s the point to life, what is this all about, why do we struggle every day. I could certainly relate to a man who came to a point where he could not see his future and he questioned the meaning of life.

GayCalgary: Did you have the idea of turning it into a film the first time you read it?

Ford: Oh no. Not at all. At that time I was an actor and I worked quite a lot in television commercials, but that was about all I did.

Most of the time I went to night clubs and did all the things that people when they’re 20 years old usually do (laughs). So, no, I wasn’t thinking at all about making film. It was really maybe about 12 years ago that I started to really become serious about making a film, and then when I left Gucci almost six years ago, I opened my production company and decided this was the time to do it.

GayCalgary: How did being a fashion maven – and having that aesthetic eye – assist in the direction of the film, especially the art direction?

Ford: I’m used to framing an image through still photography.

But what helped the most was the way I’m used to working, which is with a large group of people, making very quick decisions and creating an environment where everybody feels they can give you – and wants to give you – their absolute best, and then in leading and guiding all of these people in achieving your ultimate vision

Continued  GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine #76, February 2010

11

 Interview - Cont’d

or point of view. And that is exactly the same in film as it is in fashion.

And my age helped me. A lot of first-time directors are in their 20s and I’m – I hate to say it (laughs) – nearing 50. I’ve been around.

I’ve got a certain amount of experience, and if someone threw a tantrum, which nobody did, I would’ve known how to handle it.

GayCalgary: One of the morals of this movie is to cherish the little things in life. For you, what are those?

Ford: A lot of them are in the film. When I was writing the scene with the hustler in the parking lot, my little smooth fox terrier, which is in the movie, was curled up on my lap. One of the greatest pleasures of my entire life is my dogs, and I’ve always had dogs going back to when I was a little kid.

I really thought about the things in life that I’m going to miss (when I die), that I’m going to want to take with me. And they’re never material things. You’re not going to wish that you worked more. You’re not going to die thinking about a car you had in 1970-whatever. You’re going to think about the connections that you had with other people. The moment in life where you felt truly connected to someone.

A lot of people didn’t foresee you taking this path and making a film. What are some of your other hidden talents? Besides making a convincing straight man on the cover of Vanity Fair.

(Laughs) I wasn’t trying to be a straight man on the cover of Vanity Fair. If you’re a gay man, why can’t you sniff the back of a beautiful girl? I’m completely gay, but I have a lot of women friends who, sometimes, I want to touch because they’re beautiful and they smell great and I love them.

I don’t think most people knew that I’m extremely romantic, and I’m extremely emotional and insecure and shy. I kind of always pose in the same way. I don’t let a lot of people very far into my life. I’ve always kind of presented a surface veneer, which works for fashion.

A lot of people maybe thought that’s all there was to me. I have a very good friend that I’ve had for about 20 years, and he said he’s always thought of me as a beautiful lacquered box from the ’20s with a platinum handle, but he had no idea there was anything inside the box (laughs).

http://www.gaycalgary.com/a1554

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12

GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine #76, February 2010

GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine #75, January 2010

13

Out of Town Sydney and Mardi Gras

Exploring Mardi Gras In The Land From Down Under

By Andrew Collins

In North America, January marks the very heart of winter, and for much of the continent, this means chilly weather and dark, gloomy days. This is not the case on the other side of the world, in Sydney, Australia, which might just be the hottest and hippest gay destination in the southern hemisphere.

Here, January marks the height of summer. And just a month later (February 19 through March 7 in 2010), it’s the time for Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras. This hugely popular series of cultural events, parties, and parades celebrating gay life in Australia rivals any LGBT festival in the world. Regardless of whether you’re planning to Mardi Gras, summer is a terrific time to visit this visually stunning city.

Cultural draws are many in Sydney, beginning with one of the world’s foremost architectural icons, the Sydney Opera House, which apart from possessing a magnificent exterior overlooking Sydney Harbour presents fine operas and other musical and theatrical performances. It’s right beside Circular Quay, from which you can catch water taxis and harbor cruises to some of Sydney’s famous beach communities, such as Manly, Watsons Bay, the Harbour Islands, and also to the fascinating Taronga Zoo (an excellent place to come face to face with the many unusual animals unique to this continent). The harbor is surrounded by The Rocks neighborhood, which fringes Sydney’s modern central business district, a warren of glitzy high-rise office towers.

There are several other top sightseeing draws in this fabled city. The outstanding Art Gallery of New South 14

GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine #76, February 2010

Wales contains one of the world’s most pretigious Asian collections. Just south of the opera house, you can lose yourself for hours strolling the lush grounds of the Royal Botanic Gardens. Grab a ride on Sydney’s sleek monorail to poke around the Darling Harbour neighborhood, home to the shark-infested Sydney Aquarium and impressive Powerhouse Museum, a trove of fascinating science, natural history, and anthropology exhibits. And if it’s a sky-high photo op you’re angling for, take an elevators to the top of 1,060-foot Sydney Tower, where the southern hemisphere’s highest observatory platform offers 360-degree views.

If you’re keen on getting in touch with Sydney’s famed natural scenery, consider a stroll along the Bondi Coastal Walk, a simple and easy path along the ocean that takes less than an hour to complete. If there’s a true must-try activity, it’s booking a tour with BridgeClimb Sydney to hike across the very top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, one of the most beautiful such structures in the world.

An excellent, economical way to sightsee is to buy a Sydney Pass - these are available for three, five, or seven days and include unlimited travel on Sydney’s extensive network of ferries, buses (including the Sydney and Bondi Explorer sightseeing buses), and trains as well as discounts to numerous attractions.

Sydney’s renowned gay scene is concentrated chiefly along Oxford Street, in the city’s Darlinghurst and Surry sections, but you’ll also find an increasing GLBT presence in such funky neighborhoods as Newtown and Erskineville, which lie about 3 miles southwest of the city center.

The Oxford Street neighborhood is most interesting from about the edge of Hyde Park for several blocks east, until a

bit beyond Taylor Square. In this area you’ll find several gay bars and clubs, some fun restaurants, numerous fashion boutiques, and quite a few shops selling porn and sex toys.

Tops among the watering holes, the Colombian Hotel (note that bars and pubs in Australia often take the name “hotel” even when they don’t offer overnight accommodations) is a trendy, mixed-gender spot with two floors of fun.

Nearby, the four-level Exchange Hotel has long been a favorite for dancing and cruising into the wee hours. It’s great fun to watch the crowds gather in the neighborhood’s gay epicenter, Taylor Square, from the balcony at the Kinselas Hotel, which draws a fairly mixed crowd. Near here is Bodyline Sauna, a much-visited bathhouse; Oxford Hotel has been popular with gay guys for years, especially after a major remodel a few years back. It’s open 24 hours and draws an eclectic bunch of all ages and styles to its several bars.

Fans of drag and cabaret shows should make a point of checking out both Slide Bar and Cabaret and the campy Taxi Club. The bilevel Midnight Shift is another highly recommended spot, with a disco upstairs and a more laidback bar on the ground level. Younger guys tend to favor the loud and festive Stonewall Hotel, which offers dancing downstairs and a lounge on the second floor. Finally, hardcore lesbian and gay disco bunnies cut loose at ARQ, which is open only Thursday through Sunday nights and packs in hundreds of buff dance-aholics.

The more eclectic scene in Newtown is focused along King Street, where bars tend to draw a more local bunch. The main queer mecca along here is the Bank Hotel, which contains a very good Thai restaurant, and bars on the terrace and overlooking the garden. A short walk south in Erskineville, serious fans of drag shouldn’t miss the Imperial Hotel, which has both drag-king competitions and very popular shows that inspired the classic movie The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (parts of the movie were filmed here).

Sydney is of the world capitals of inventive dining - there are great restaurants all over town. For a truly special occasion, few restaurants in Australia deliver more “wow” factor than Rockpool, a temple of creative modern Australian (aka “Mod Oz”) cuisine, where you might sample such innovate fare as stir-fried squid and King prawns with squidink noodles, smoked bacon, and chilies. Around the corner, Wine Odyssey Australia is a restaurant and vino bar with a terrific selection of wines from every part of the country, plus very good contemporary food to match (including a knockout cheese plate).

For more casual dining and drinking, stop by one of the city’s quintessentially old-school pubs, such as the warm and festive Lord Nelson Hotel, which serves a nice array of ales and lagers as well as tasty pub food. And for incredibly delicious Thai food, look to Sailors Thai restaurant, an elegant restaurant on one of the Rocks’ busiest streets.

In the heart of the main gay district, for inexpensive, homestyle food, drop by laid-back Betty’s Soup Kitchen, which is known for its huge, meal-size bowls of soup, from lentil to gazpacho, plus simple pastas and homemade desserts. The Grumpy Baker is a cute coffeehouse with delicious baked goods and a typically delicious-looking clientele, too. More upscale options include The Falconer, which specializes in region - mostly organic - cuisine, such as slow-roasted pork belly with saffron pears and chestnut puree.

Just off from Taylor Square, hip Emmilou serves authentic yet contemporary Spanish tapas (goat sausage with red cabbage jam, sardines on toast with sweet-chili salsa) and groovy cocktails. Coco Cubano is a casually elegant coffeehouse and bar serving Latin-inspired drinks to a sexy, mixed crowd. Wok on Inn is a cheap-and-handy Asian restaurant specializing in noodle bowls. Nearby in trendy Paddington, Toko Sushi on Oxford turns out some of the most inventive sushi in town, in an uber-trendy dining room.

Continued  GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine #76, February 2010

15

 Out of Town - Cont'd.

A couple of blocks north of Oxford, check out trendy Fishface for exceptional seafood - everything from sushi to fish-and-chips, all prepared with great creative flourish. And nearby Le Petit Crème serves wonderful coffees, breakfast fare, and sandwiches - enjoy them on the lovely terrace.

In the up-and-coming Inner West area, the Newtown and Glebe neighborhoods have become popular for funky shopping and ethnic dining. King Street in Newtown is a good bet for food explorers. Here you might try the slightly glam Twelve Restaurant, which prepares modern Italian and Australian cuisine, including very good pizzas, grills, pastas.

Hipster-favored Corelli’s Espresso offers great peoplewatching, plus tasty breakfast fare (try the waffles) and light sandwiches and salads at lunch.

Although it’s huge and a tad banquet-y feeling, Thai Pothong serves authentic, delicious food, from barbecue octopus with chili-sour sauce to spicy Thai duck salad. Not far from Newtown, charming Cafe Giulia - set in a remodeled century-old butcher shop - serves some of best breakfasts in town. Try the Tuscan toast topped with grilled mushrooms, avocado, and tomatoes.

Sydney has a number of inviting accommodations, most of them downtown, which is either a pleasant 20- to 30-minute walk or a relatively quick cab ride from Oxford Street. Directly facing Sydney Harbour, you’ll find the stunning Park Hyatt, a four-story hotel with unbelievably cushy rooms, roundthe-clock butler service, and a loyal celeb following. If you get a chance, eat lunch in the hotel’s open-air dining room overlooking the harbor and opera house.

There aren’t too many accommodations right along Oxford Street, but one lovely and relatively affordable option is the Arts Hotel, just east of Darlinghurst in Paddington. This intimate and friendly property has reasonably priced, simple, yet contemporary rooms plus a pool and exercise room.

Right on Hyde Park, there’s the Sydney Marriott, which has

posh room and is steps from gay scene. Just a short walk from Oxford, the boutique-y, gay-welcoming Kirketon Hotel is hip yet moderately priced, its room TVs with DVD and CD players - guests also receive free passes to a nearby gym.

If you’re seeking a little extra leg room, try the nearby Vibe Hotel, whose spacious, brightly colored, and relatively affordable studio rooms have kitchenettes. In a similar vein, Quest Apartments is ideal for longer stay. Units at this property near Kings Cross (a 10-minute walk from Oxford Street) have kitchens and beautiful modern furnishings, and the staff is top-notch.

Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras This massive celebration began in 1978 and takes place over about four weeks and includes a huge launch party, a Mardi Gras Film Festival, several big parties, and the incredibly colorful Mardi Gras Parade. New this 2010, Mardi Gras began holding its massive Mardi Gras tk party a week after the parade (as opposed to directly after it, as it has in the past). More than a half-million observers and tourists have come to watch the parade in past years, and the party can draw another 15,000 revelers. Log on to www.mardigras. org.au for a full description of events as well as tickets.

Andrew Collins covers gay travel for the New York Times-owned website About.com and is the author of Fodor’s Gay Guide to the USA. He can be reached care of this publication.

The Little Black Book

ARQ (www.arqsydney.com.au). Arts Hotel (www.artshotel.com.au).

Bank Hotel (www.bankhotel.com.au ). Bodyline Sauna (www.bodylinesydney.com). Cafe Giulia (www.cafegiulia.com). Colombian Hotel (www.colombian.com.au). Emmilou Tapas (www.emmilou.com.au).

The Establishment (www.establishmenthotel.com). Exchange Hotel (www.exchangehotel.com.au). The Falconer (www.thefalconer.com. au). Grumpy Baker (www.thegrumpybaker.com.au). Imperial Hotel (www.theimperialhotel.com.au). Kinselas Hotel (www.kinselas. com.au). Kirketon Hotel (www.kirketon.com.au). Lord Nelson Brewery Hotel (www.lordnelsonbrewery.com). Midnight Shift (www. themidnightshift.com). Oxford Hotel (www.theoxfordhotel.com.au).

Park Hyatt (www.sydney.park.hyatt.com). Quest Apartments (www. questpottspoint.com.au). Rockpool (www.rockpool.com). Sailors Thai (www.sailorsthai.com.au). Slide Bar and Cabaret (www.slide. com.au). Stonewall Hotel (www.stonewallhotel.com). Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras (www.mardigras.org.au). Sydney Marriott (www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/sydcc-sydney-marriott-hotel). Sydney Pass (www.sydneybuses.info/tourist-services/sydneypass.htm).

Sydney/New South Wales office of Tourism (www.visitnsw.com). Taxi Club (www.thetaxi.com.au). Thai Pothong (www.thaipothong.com. au). Toko Sushi on Oxford (www.toko.com.au). Vibe Hotel (www. vibehotels.com.au). Wine Odyssey Australia (www.wineodyssey.com. au). Wok on Inn (www.wokoninn.com.au). http://www.gaycalgary.com/a1556

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16

GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine #76, February 2010

Directory & Events 24

DOWNTOWN CALGARY

43 41 37

55 9

34

2 33

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56

16

48

4

35 36

3

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1 2 3 4 5 6

Calgary Outlink---------- Community Groups Aids Calgary------------- Community Groups Backlot------------------------ Bars and Clubs Calgary Eagle Inc.------------ Bars and Clubs Texas Lounge----------------- Bars and Clubs Goliath’s-------------------------- Bathhouses

9 MPs (Money Pennies)-------- Bars and Clubs 13 Westways Guest House---- Accommodations 16 Priape Calgary------------------ Retail Stores 24 Courtney Aarbo----------------------- Services 33 Twisted Element-------------- Bars and Clubs 34 Vertigo Mystery Theatre------------- Theatre

Find Out!

One Yellow Rabbit-------------------- Theatre ATP, Alberta Theatre Projects-------- Theatre Pumphouse Theatre----------------- Theatre La Fleur-------------------------- Retail Stores Lisa Heinricks----------Theatre and Fine Arts Barbies Shop-------------------- Retail Stores

Calgary

LGBT Community Directory GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine is the go-to source for information about Alberta LGBT businesses and community groups—the most extensive and accurate resource of its kind! This print supplement contains a subset of active community groups and venues, with premium business listings of paid advertisers.

✰. ..... Find our Magazine Here

35 36 37 41 43 48

......... Wheelchair Accessible

Spot something inaccurate or outdated? Want your business or organization listed? We welcome you to contact us!

 403-543-6960  1-888-543-6960

 magazine@gaycalgary.com http://www.gaycalgary.com/CalgaryTravelRss http://www.gaycalgary.com/EdmontonTravelRss

Local Bars, Restaurants, and Accommodations info on the go! http://www.gaycalgary.com/Directory

Browse our complete directory of over 525 gay-frieindly listings!

Sandra G. Sebree-------------------- Services Marquee Room--------------- Bars and Clubs Sacred Balance Piercing-------- Retail Stores Theatre Junction--------------------- Theatre

of Sinatra” on Fri. and varied entertainment on Thurs. Please call for details.

Accommodations 13 Westways Guest House--------------------✰

 216 - 25th Avenue SW  403-229-1758  1-866-846-7038  westways@shaw.ca  www.gaywestways.com

Wingate by Wyndham

 400 Midpark Way SE  www.wingatehotels.com

52 55 56 58

 403-514-0099

55 Marquee Room-----------------------------✰

 612 - 8th Avenue SW  http://www.marqueeroom.com

Alternative night every Wednesday.

9 Money Pennies (MPs)------------------- ✰

 1742 - 10th Ave SW  403-263-7411  http://www.money-pennies.com  Closed Mondays.

Bar and restaurant.

 209 - 10th Ave SW

5 Texas Lounge-------------------------------✰

 308 - 17 Ave SW  403-229-0911  http://www.goliaths.ca  Open 7 days a week, 11am-close

4 Calgary Eagle Inc.----------------------- ✰  424a - 8th Ave SE  403-263-5847

33 Twisted Element

 1006 - 11th Ave SW  403-802-0230

 http://www.twistedelement.ca

Bars & Clubs 3 Backlot----------------------------------- ✰  403-265-5211  Open 7 days a week, 4pm-close

 http://www.calgaryeagle.com  Open Wed-Sun, 5pm-close Leather/Denim/Fetish bar.

Club Paradiso

 1413 - 9th Ave SE, upstairs  403-265-5739  www.villagecantina.ca

Dance Club and Lounge.

Bathhouses/Saunas 6 Goliaths-------------------------------------✰

 308 - 17 Ave SW  403-229-0911  http://www.goliaths.ca  Open 7 days a week, 24 hours a day

Carly’s Angels on Sat. Billy Schmidt’s “Sounds

GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine #76, February 2010

17

Directory & Events CALGARY EVENTS Mondays

ASK Meet and Greet----------------  7-9:30pm See Alberta Society for Kink Inside Out Youth Group----------------  7-9pm See 1 Calgary Outlink Yoga-----------------------------  7:45-9:15pm See Apollo Calgary Jan11Apr5 Radio Show-------------------------  8:30-9pm See “Yeah...What She Said!”

Tuesdays

Steak Night-----------------------------  All Day At 9 Money Pennies Calgary Networking Club--------------  5-7pm See 1 Calgary Outlink  1st Tues Between Men---------------------------  7-9pm See 1 Calgary Outlink  2nd, 4th Rehearsals--------------------------  7-9:30pm See Calgary Men’s Chorus Jun Karaoke------------------------------  8pm-1am At 5 Texas Lounge Wednesdays

Communion Service------------------  12:10pm See Knox United Church Women’s Healing Circle---------------  1:30pm See AIDS Calgary Wing Night------------------------------  All Day At 9 Money Pennies Free Pool-------------------------------  All Day At 4 Calgary Eagle With Prime Timers Calgary Badminton------------------------------  7-9pm See Apollo Calgary Jan6Mar31 Bowling------------------------------------ 7pm See Apollo Calgary Mar3 Radio Show----------------------------  9-10pm See Urban Sex Radio Thursdays

Country Night-------------------------- Evening At 4 Calgary Eagle

Community Groups 2 AIDS Calgary---------------------------- ✰

 110, 1603 10th Avenue SW  403-508-2500  info@aidscalgary.org  http://www.aidscalgary.org

• Women’s Healing Circle

 AIDS Calgary Training Room  403-508-2500, ext.200 Topics Covered: Safer Sex & HIV/AIDS, Living with HIV/AIDS, Challenging Stereotypes.

Alberta Society for Kink

 403-398-9968  albetasocietyforkink@hotmail.com  ca.groups.yahoo.com/

Swim Practice---------------------------  6-7pm See Different Strokes Fake Mustache Show---------------  7-9:45pm See Miscellaneous Youth Network  1st Fridays

Leather Night-------------------------- Evening At 4 Calgary Eagle

Lusty Lasagne Contest----------------- 5pm

By Pride Calgary at 4 Calgary Eagle Tuesday, February 9th

William Yang’s China---------------------- 8pm At 58 Theatre Junction Feb13 Wednesday, February 10th

ManHunt Party---------------------------- 1pm At 4 Calgary Eagle With Rocky Mountain Bears Cabin Fever---------------------------- Evening At The Soda March 2010

Prof. Development Workshop-------------- ???

By Calgary Sexual Health Centre Mar3

Illusions--------------------------------  7-10pm See 1 Calgary Outlink  1st

Core Training Workshop-----------  9am-4pm See 2 AIDS Calgary

Womynspace----------------------------  7-9pm See 1 Calgary Outlink  2nd

Saturday, February 13th

Monthly Dance------------------------- 8pm See ARGRA Mar13

Black Out Fetish Party----------------- Evening At 4 Calgary Eagle

Mardi Gras Dance Party---------------  12-8am At 6 Goliaths Mar13

Love is In the Air Dance Party--------  12-8am At 6 Goliaths

Potluck Dinner-------------------------  12-8am See Rocky Mountain Bears Mar13

Valentines Day Dance-------------- Evening

By Bad Romance Entertainment  35th Floor, 220 4th Avenue SW

St. Patricks Day Irish Auction------------ 8pm At 6 Texas Lounge Mar14

New Directions--------------------------  7-9pm See 1 Calgary Outlink  3rd Heading Out-----------------------  8pm-10pm See 1 Calgary Outlink  4th Saturdays

Wednesday, February 17th

Alberta Weekend of Leather-------- Evenings At 4 Calgary Eagle Mar19-21

25¢ Wings-------------------------------  All Day At 9 Money Pennies

HIV & Employment Workshop-----  9am-4pm At 2 AIDS Calgary

From Sirs With Lust II----------------- Evening At 4 Calgary Eagle Mar20

Curling------------------------------------- 7pm See Apollo Calgary Feb13

Prof. Development Workshop-------------- ???

By Calgary Sexual Health Centre Mar3

Karaoke------------------------------  8pm-1am At 5 Texas Lounge

Friday, February 19th

Bear Night----------------------------- Evening At 4 Calgary Eagle With Rocky Mountain Bears

Coffee------------------------------------  10am See Prime Timers Calgary

Tuned Out Music Trivia----------------  Evening At 9 Money Pennies  1st, 3rd Sundays

Worship Time----------------------------  10am See Deer Park United Church Worship------------------------------  10:30am See Scarboro United Church

Positive Living Lunch---------------------- 1pm At 2 AIDS Calgary

Western Cup------------------------  All Day See Apollo Calgary Apr1-3

Bears Dine Out----------------------------  TBA See Rocky Mountain Bears

Monthly Dance------------------------- 8pm See ARGRA Apr10,May29

8th Anniversary Party----------------- Evening At 4 Calgary Eagle

Hot Tub Party------------------------------ 8pm See Rocky Mountain Bears Apr10

Sunday, February 21st

Coronation 34-------------------------- 6pm See ISCCA Apr17 At the Westin Hotel

Flashlight Party---------------------  6pm-6am At 6 Goliaths

Church Service----------------------------- 4pm See Rainbow Community Church

Thursday, February 25th

Swim Practice---------------------------  5-6pm See Different Strokes Free Pool-------------------------------  All Day At 4 Calgary Eagle Friday, February 5th

Positive Living Lunch---------------------- 1pm At 2 AIDS Calgary Apollo Calgary Friends in Sports

 http://www.apollocalgary.com

A volunteer-operated, non-profit organization serving primarily members of the LGBT communities but open to members of all communities. Currently have more than 400 members! Primary focus is to provide members with well organized and fun sporting events and other activities.

• Western Cup Largest LGBT Sporting Competition in North America • Badminton (Absolutely Smashing)

 St. Martha School (6020 4th Avenue NE)  badminton@apollocalgary.com Fees Per session: $4 for Apollo member, $5 for nonmembers. Season’s pass $75.

GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine #76, February 2010

April 2010

Saturday, February 20th

Worship Services-------------------------  11am See Knox United Church

group.albertasocietyforkink

18

Sunday, February 7th

Chinese New Year----------------------  6:30pm  Regency Palace Seafood (328 Centre Street SE) See Girlfriends Saturday, February 27th

Sleigh Ride----------------------------- 1pm See ARGRA With Prime Timers Calgary

Annual General Meeting------------------ 7pm See Rocky Mountain Bears Apr29 September 2010

Pride Dance-----------------------------  TBA

Sep4 Pride Parade/Street Festival----------  TBA

Sep5

Legend:  = Monthly Reoccurrance,  = Date (Range/Future),  = Sponsored Event • Boot Camp

 Stone steps, SE corner of Crescent Park Crescent Road & 2nd Street NW  bootcamp@apollocalgary.com Dress in layers and running shoes, bring plenty of water, bring payment in cash to first session.

Registration has closed.

• Bowling (Rainbow Riders League)

 Let’s 10 Pin Bowlerama, 2916 - 5 Ave NE  bowling@apollocalgary.com • Curling

 North Hill Curling Club (1201 - 2 Street NW)  curling@apollocalgary.com • Golf

 golf@apollocalgary.com

• Lawn Bowling

 Inglewood Lawn Bowling Club 1235 - 8th Avenue SE

 lawnbowling@apollocalgary.com • Outdoor Pursuits

 outdoorpursuits@apollocalgary.com • Running (Calgary Frontrunners)

 Hillhurst United Church, 1227 Kensington Close  Tim 403-660-6125  calgaryfrontrunners@shaw.ca  Tues, Thurs, Sat at 8am Calgary Alcoholics Anonymous Group For Gay Lesbian Bisexual and Transgendered People. A safe place to find help for problems with alcohol.

Directory & Events • Slow Pitch • Tennis • Volleyball (Intermediate/Competitive)

 YWCA, 320 - 5th Avenue SE  vb@apollocalgary.com  www.apollocalgary.com/apollo/volleyball This is for seasoned players. You can sign up for the season or drop-in.

• Volleyball (Recreational)

 Langevin School, 107 - 6A Street NE  vb@apollocalgary.com  www.apollocalgary.com/apollo/volleyball Volleyball League, Co-Ed, Recreational, Drop-in.

Alberta Rockies Gay Rodeo Association (ARGRA)

 403-541-8140  www.argra.org • Monthly Dances-----------------------------  Hillhurst-Sunnyside Community Association 1320 - 5th Avenue NW Artists for the Quality of Life

 403-890-1261  www.afqol.com Cabin Fever

 4 Calgary Eagle

Women’s dance and social night.

Calgary Gay Fathers

 calgaryfathers@hotmail.com  http://www.calgarygayfathers.ca

Peer support group for gay, bisexual and questioning fathers. Meeting twice a month.

Calgary Men’s Chorus

 http://www.calgarymenschorus.org

• Rehearsals

 Temple B’Nai Tikvah, 900 - 47 Avenue SW Calgary Sexual Health Centre---------- ✰

 304, 301 14th Street NW 403-283-5580   http://www.calgarysexualhealth.ca A pro-choice organization that believes all people have the right and ability to make their own choices regarding their sexual and reproductive health.

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  1-877-OUT-IS-OK (1-877-688-4765) 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 Peer support, sexual health education for gay or bisexual men, as well as those who may be uncertain or questioning their sexuality.

• Calgary Networking Club

 Ming, 520 - 17th Ave SW 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.

• Heading Out Peer group for men who are looking for an alternative social activity to the bar. Activities vary and are fun and entertaining.

• Illusions Calgary Social group for Calgary and area transgender community members (cross dressers, transvestites, drag kings and queens). A safe, discrete and welcoming atmosphere, in which transgendered people can meet others of like mind.

• Inside Out Peer-facilitated youth group for GLBTQ ages 15-25.

Aims to let youth know they are not alone, and to connect them with their peers. Safe environment with a variety of resources and activities.

• New Directions Drop in peer-support group to provide support and resources for individuals who identify as transsexual or inter-sexed.

• SHEQ Soulful Healing Ego Quest

 Trudy or Krista, 403-585-7437 Workshop for women—a chance to grow and share their experiences related to women’s sexuality. To participate, please call or leave your name and a contact time/number with Calgary Outlink.

• Womynspace 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)

Deer Park United Church/Wholeness Centre  403-278-8263

 77 Deerpoint Road SE  http://www.dpuc.ca

Different Strokes

 http://www.differentstrokescalgary.org • Swim Practice

 SAIT Pool, 1301 - 16th Ave NW  No practices on long weekends 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.

FairyTales Presentation Society

 #4 - 1230A 17th Avenue SW  403-244-1956

 http://www.fairytalesfilmfest.com Alberta Gay & Lesbian Film Festival.

• DVD Resource Library Over a hundred titles to choose from. Annual membership is $10.

Gay Singles in Calgary

 http://www.gaysinglesincalgary.org

Girl Friends

 members.shaw.ca/girlfriends Girlsgroove

 http://www.girlsgroove.ca

GLBT Housing

 http://www.glbthousing.ca

HIV Peer Support Group

 403-230-5832  hivpeergroup@yahoo.ca

ISCCA Social Association

 http://www.iscca.ca Imperial Sovereign Court of the Chinook Arch. All monies raised go to Charity.

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

 10:30am in July and August.

Miscellaneous Youth Network  http://www.miscyouth.com • Fake Mustache------------------------------  The Soda, 211 - 12th Ave SW Calgary’s ONLY Drag King Show. $5 cover. $2 cover under 18. Advance tickets available at Barbies Shop.

Mystique

 mystiquesocialclub@yahoo.com

Mystique is primarily a Lesbian group for women 30 and up but all are welcome.

• Coffee Night

 Second Cup (2312 - 4th Street SW) NETWORKS

 403-293-3356  sanpfeif@telus.net A social, cultural, and service organization for the mature minded and “Plus 40” LGBT individuals seeking to meet others at age-appropriate activities within a positive, safe environment.

Parents for Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG)

 Sean: 403-695-5791  http://www.pflagcanada.ca

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  http://www.mtroyal.ca/positivespace

Works to raise awareness and challenge the patterns of silence that continue to marginalize LGBTTQ individuals.

Pride Calgary Planning Committee

 403-797-6564  www.pridecalgary.ca Pride Rainbow Project

 prp@planet-save.com  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.

Designed to foster social interaction for its members through a variety of social, educational and recreational activities. Open to all gay and bisexual men of any age, respects whatever degree of anonymity that each member desires.

• Free Pool

 4 Calgary Eagle • Saturday Coffee

 Midtown Co-op, 1130 - 11th Ave SW 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.

• Coffee Night

 2nd Cup, Kensington Rainbow Community Church

 Hillhurst United, 1227 Kensington Close NW  roneberly@shaw.ca  http://www.rainbowcommunitychurch.ca

The Rainbow Community Church is an all-inclusive church; everyone is welcome.

Rocky Mountain Bears  bearcoltr@shaw.ca

 http://www.rockymountainbears.com

Safety Under the Rainbow

 http://www.safetyrainbow.ca

Mission: To raise awareness and understanding of same-sex domestic violence and homophobic youth bullying.

Scarboro United Church

 134 Scarboro Avenue SW  403-244-1161  www.scarborounited.ab.ca

An affirming congregation—the full inclusion of LGBT people is essential to our mission and purpose.

Sharp Foundation

 403-272-2912  sharpfoundation@nucleus.com  http://www.thesharpfoundation.com

Unity Bowling

 Let’s Bowl (2916 - 5th Ave NE)  sundayunity@live.com

Urban Sex Radio Show

 CJSW 90.9 FM

 http://www.cjsw.com 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/  bigpaul41@yahoo.com Vigor Calgary

 403-255-7004

 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.

“Yeah...What She Said!” Radio Show

 CJSW 90.9 FM

 yeahwhatshesaid@gmail.com

Primetimers Calgary

 primetimerscalgary@gmail.com  http://www.primetimerscalgary.com

GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine #76, February 2010

19

Directory & Events DOWNTOWN EDMONTON

1

8

5

7 11 6 12

1 Pride Centre------------- Community Groups 3 HIV Network------------- Community Groups 4 Edmonton STD---------- Community Groups

Restaurants 4 Calgary Eagle Inc.--------------------- See Calgary - Bars and Clubs.

✰

5 Boots Bar and Lounge------- Bars and Clubs 6 Buddy’s Nite Club------------ Bars and Clubs 7 Down Under Baths--------------- Bathhouses

 888 Meridian Road NE  403-291-1444  sales@tandthonda.ca  www.tandthonda.ca

• Kelvin Hur

 403-990-9080 New Vehicle Sales Manager ✰

See Calgary - Bars and Clubs.

Retail Stores Adult Depot----------------------------- ✰

 140, 58th Ave SW  403-258-2777 Gay, bi, straight video rentals and sex toys.

41 La Fleur------------------------------------  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.

16 Priape Calgary------------------------- ✰

 1322 - 17 Ave SW  403-215-1800  http://www.priape.com

Clothing and accessories. Adult toys, leather wear, movies and magazines. Gifts.

• Lawrence Wong

 403-870-5001 Sales Consultant Wares & Wear Ventures Inc. See Canada - Retail Stores.

Services & Products Back2Basics Consulting

 403-607-1691  www.back2basics-consulting.com

Bad Romance Entertainment  www.badromance-entertainment.com Calgary Civil Marriage Centre  ca.ca@shaw.ca Marriage Commissioner for Alberta (aka Justice of the Peace - JP), Marriage Officiant, Commissioner for Oaths.  403-246-4134

24 Courtney Aarbo (Barristers & Solicitors)

 1138 Kensington Road NW  403-571-5120  http://www.courtneyaarbo.ca

GLBT legal services.

20

GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine #76, February 2010

N

4

T&T Honda

Halo Steak, Seafood & Wine Bar

 Canyon Meadows Plaza 13226 Macleod Trail SE  403-271-4111  www.halosteakseafoodandwinebar.ca 9 MPs (Money Pennies)------------------

3

13

8 Prism Bar & Grill------------- Bars and Clubs 11 Steamworks---------------------- Bathhouses 12 Woody’s----------------------- Bars and Clubs

Cruiseline

 403-777-9494 trial code 3500  http://www.cruiseline.ca

Telephone classifieds and chat - 18+ ONLY. DevaDave Salon & Boutique

 810 Edmonton Trail NE  403-290-1973 Cuts, Colour, Hilights.

Duncan’s Residential Cleaning  Jim Duncan: 403-978-6600

Residential cleaning. Free estimates.

Interactive Male

 403-261-2112 trial code 8873  1-800-777-8000  www.interactivemale.com Keith Hill, North Hill Mazda

 1211 Centre Street NW  Cell: 403-614-7359  Phone: 403-276-5962  Fax: 403-276-7361  khill@northhillmazda.com  www.northhillmazda.com

Lorne Doucette (CIR Realtors)

 403-461-9195  http://www.lornedoucette.com

Marnie Campbell (Maxwell Realtors)

 403-479-8619  http://www.marniecampbell.ca

13 PLAY Nightclub--------------- Bars and Clubs

MFM Communications

 403-543-6970  1-877-543-6970  http://www.mfmcommunications.com

Web site hosting and development. Computer hardware and software.

North Shore Safety

 (403)771-6393  www.northshoresafetyconsulting.com

Rick Grenier (Invis)

 403-862-1162

 rickgrenier@invis.ca

Mortgage solutions.

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.

• 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

Directory & Events • Safeworks Van

 403-850-3755  Sat-Thu: 8pm-12am, Fri: 4pm-12am

12 Woody’s-------------------------------------✰

 11725 Jasper Ave  780-488-6557

Bathhouses/Saunas

52 Sandra G. Sebree, Lawyer

 1610 - 17th Ave SW  403-228-8108  www.sandrasebree.com

7 Down Under Baths-------------------------✰

 12224 Jasper Ave  780-482-7960  http://www.gayedmonton.com

TherapyWorks

11 Steamworks--------------------------------✰

 11745 Jasper Ave  780-451-5554  http://www.steamworksedmonton.com

 403-561-6873  ckorol@therapyworks.ca  http://www.therapyworks.com

Take back your life from stress, sadness, and worry.

Alberta Bears

Theatre & 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  rob@axisart.ca  www.axisart.ca Fairytales See Calgary - Community Groups.

Jubilations Dinner Theatre  Bow Trail and 37th St. SW  403-249-7799  www.jubilations.ca

35 One Yellow Rabbit-------------------------  Big Secret Theatre - EPCOR CENTRE  403-299-8888  www.oyr.org

✰

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  info@theatrejunction.com  http://www.theatrejunction.com

 www.bearbeef.org

Book Worm’s Book Club  Second Cup, 11210 Jasper Ave  bookworm@teamedmonton.ca Buck Naked Boys Club

 780-471-6993  http://www.bucknakedboys.ca Naturism club for men—being social while everyone is naked, and it does not include sexual activity.

Participants do not need to be gay, only male.

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

43 Lisa Heinricks (Artist)---------------------  Art Central, 100 7th Ave SW, lower level  http://www.creamydreamy.com

37 Pumphouse Theatre------------------  2140 Pumphouse Avenue SW  403-263-0079  http://www.pumphousetheatres.ca

Community Groups

✰

34 Vertigo Mystery Theatre------------------  161, 115 - 9 Ave SE  403-221-3708  http://www.vertigomysterytheatre.com

Edmonton Bars & 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  info@playnightclub.ca  http://www.playnightclub.ca 8 Prism Bar & Grill----------------------- ✰

 10524 101st St  780-990-0038  http://www.prismbar.ca

Edmonton Pride Week Society

 http://www.prideedmonton.org

Edmonton Prime Timers  edmontonpt@yahoo.ca  www.primetimersww.org/edmonton Group of older gay men and their admirers who come from diverse backgrounds but have common social interests. Affiliated with Prime Timers World Wide.

Edmonton Rainbow Business Association

 3379, 11215 Jasper Ave  780-429-5014  http://www.edmontonrba.org Primary focus is the provision of networking opportunities for LGBT owned or operated and LGBTfriendly businesses in the Edmonton region.

Edmonton Illusions Social Club

 5 Boots Bar & Grill  780-387-3343

 groups.yahoo.com/group/edmonton_illusions 4 Edmonton STD

 11111 Jasper Ave

Edmonton Vocal Minority  sing@evmchoir.com

 780-479-2038  www.evmchoir.com

Exposure 2010

 TBA 3 HIV Network Of Edmonton Society---- ✰  11456 Jasper Ave  www.hivedmonton.com

Imperial Sovereign Court of the Wild Rose

 http://www.gayedmonton.org

OUTreach

 University of Alberta, basement of SUB  outreach@ualberta.ca  http://www.ualberta.ca/~outreach

Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender/transsexual,

Queer, Questioning and Straight-but-not-Narrow student group.

1 Pride Centre of Edmonton-------------- ✰

 95A Street, 111 Ave  780-488-3234  admin@pridecentreofedmonton.org

• Community Potluck

 Main Space – Upstairs

 tuff@shaw.ca A potluck open to all members of the LGBTQ community. A time to get together, share a meal and meet people from the community.

• Free School

 Main Space – Upstairs  monika_penner@shaw.ca Free School provides workshops on a variety of topics related to local activism.

• Get Tested for STIs Free STD testing for anyone interested. For more information please contact the Pride Centre.

• GLBT Seniors Drop-In

 Main Space – Upstairs  tuff@shaw.ca A social and support group for seniors of all genders and sexualities to talk, have tea and offer each other support.

• Men Talking with Pride

 Main Space – Upstairs

 robwells780@hotmail.com A social discussion group for gay, bisexual and transgendered men to discuss current issues and to offer support to each other.

• Men’s HIV Support Group

 Green Room – Upstairs  huges@shaw.ca Support group for people living with HIV/AIDS. • PFLAG

 Red room - Downstairs  780-436-1998  edmontonab@pflagcanada.ca Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays: A support group for family members and friends of GLBT people. An excellent resource for people whose family members and friends have just come out.

• Prime Timers See Edmonton Primetimers.

• Suit Up and Show Up: AA Big Book Study

 Downstairs Couch Area Discussion and support group for those struggling with an alcohol addiction or seeking support in staying sober.

• TTIQ

 Green Room – Upstairs  admin@pridecentreofedmonton.org TTIQ is mixed gender open support group addressing the needs of transsexual and transgendered individuals.

• Womonspace Board Meeting

 Main Space – Upstairs  wspresident@hotmail.com Womonspace is a Social and Recreational Society in Edmonton run by volunteers. They provide opportunities for lesbians to interact and support each other in a safe environment, and to contribute to the broader community.

• Youth Movie

 Main Space – Upstairs  brendan@pridecentreofedmonton.org Movie chosen by youth (aged 14 – 25), usually with LGBT themes. Popcorn is served.

• YouthSpace

 brendan@pridecentreofedmonton.org A safe and supportive space for GLBTQ youth aged 13–25. Video games, computers with internet, clothing bank, and more.

• Youth Understanding Youth See separate listing.

Team Edmonton

 president@teamedmonton.ca  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 (Mixed)

 St. Thomas Moore School, 9610 165 Street

 coedbadminton@teamedmonton.ca New group seeking male & female players.

• Badminton (Women’s)

 Oliver School, 10227 - 118 Street  780-465-3620

 badminton@teamedmonton.ca Women’s Drop-In Recreational Badminton. $40.00 season or $5.00 per drop in.

•Ballroom Dancing

 Foot Notes Dance Studio, 9708-45 Avenue NW  Cynthia: 780-469-3281 • Blazin’ Bootcamp

 Lynnwood School  bootcamp@teamedmonton.ca • Bowling (Northern Titans)

 Gateway Lanes, 100 - 3414 Gateway Blvd

 bowling@teamedmonton.ca $15.00 per person.

• Cross Country Skiing  crosscountry@teamedmonton.ca • Curling with Pride

 Granite Curling Club, 8620 107 Street NW  780-463-5942  curling@teamedmonton.ca • Cycling (Edmonton Prideriders)

 Various locations in Edmonton  cycling@teamedmonton.ca  Every Wednesday, 6:30pm • Dragon Boat (Flaming Dragons)

 dragonboat@teamedmonton.ca • Golf  golf@teamedmonton.ca • Gymnastics, Drop-in

 Ortona Gymnastics Club, 8755 - 50 Avenue  gymnastics@teamedmonton.ca Have the whole gym to yourselves and an instructor to help you achieve your individual goals. Cost is $5.00 per session.

• Hockey  hockey@teamedmonton.ca • Outdoor Pursuits

 outdoorpursuits@teamedmonton.ca

GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine #76, February 2010

21

Directory & Events EDMONTON EVENTS Mondays

Boot Camp------------------------------  7-8pm See Team Edmonton Men’s HIV Support Group-------------  7-9pm See Pride Centre of Edmonton  2nd Curling---------------------------------  7:15pm See Team Edmonton Mar Tuesdays

GLBT Seniors Drop-in------------------  1-4pm See Pride Centre of Edmonton TTIQ-------------------------------------  2-4pm See Pride Centre of Edmonton  2nd Youthspace------------------------------  3-7pm See Pride Centre of Edmonton Community Potluck---------------------  7-9pm See Pride Centre of Edmonton  Last Swimming------------------------------ Evening See Team Edmonton Wednesdays

PFLAG---------------------------------  12:10pm See Pride Centre of Edmonton  1st Youthspace------------------------------  3-7pm See Pride Centre of Edmonton Youth Sports/Recreation------------------ 4pm See Youth Understanding Youth Women’s Badminton---------------  6-7:30pm See Team Edmonton Mar

Youth Understanding Youth------------  7-9pm See Youth Understanding Youth Mixed Badminton---------------------  8-10pm See Team Edmonton Jan13End of May

• Samsara Yoga

 Korezone Fitness, #203, 10575 -115 Street  yoga@teamedmonton.ca • Slo Pitch

 Parkallen Field, 111 st and 68 ave  slo-pitch@teamedmonton.ca Season fee is $30.00 per person. $10 discount for players from the 2008 season.

• Snowballs III

 February 5-7th, 2010  snowballs@teamedmonton.ca Skiing and Snowboarding Weekend.

• Soccer

 soccer@teamedmonton.ca • Spin

 MacEwan Centre for Sport and Wellness 109 St. and 104 Ave  Wednesdays, 5:45-6:45pm

Saturdays

Thursdays

GLBT Seniors Drop-in------------------  1-4pm See Pride Centre of Edmonton

AA Big Book Study--------------------  12-1pm See Pride Centre of Edmonton

Womonspace Dance----------------  9pm-1am  Bellevue Comm. Hall (7308 - 112 Ave)

By Womonspace

Get Tested for STIs----------------------  3-6pm See Pride Centre of Edmonton  Last

Monthly Meeting-----------------------  2:30pm

By Edmonton Primetimers  2nd  Unitarian Church, 10804 - 119th Street

Queen of Hearts Cabaret----------------  10pm

By ISCWR at 5 Boots Bar and Lounge

Youthspace------------------------------  3-7pm See Pride Centre of Edmonton

Youthspace--------------------------  3-6:30pm See Pride Centre of Edmonton

Saturday, February 13th

Sunday, February 14th

Saturday, February 20th

Bowling------------------------------------ 5pm See Team Edmonton

Winterfest with Wayne Lee--------  6pm-10pm

By ISCWR  Main Ballroom, 10155 - 105 Street

Sundays

Sunday, February 21st

Intermediate Volleyball--------  7:30-9:30pm See Team Edmonton

Running------------------------------  10-11am See Team Edmonton

Dinner with the ISCWR------------------  10pm

By ISCWR at 5 Boots Bar and Lounge

Swimming------------------------------ Evening See Team Edmonton

Free School----------------------------  11-5pm See Pride Centre of Edmonton  2nd, 4th

Saturday, February 27th

Fridays

Womonspace Meeting---------  12:30-1:30pm See Pride Centre of Edmonton  1st

Youth Sports/Recreation------------------ 4pm See Youth Understanding Youth Youth Understanding Youth------------  7-9pm See Pride Centre of Edmonton

Edmonton Illusions-------------------------- ???

See 1 Pride Centre of Edmonton  2nd Youthspace--------------------------  3-6:30pm See Pride Centre of Edmonton Youth Sports/Recreation------------------ 4pm See Youth Understanding Youth Youth Movie Night------------------  6:30-8:30 See 1 Pride Centre of Edmonton

Season has ended.  spin@teamedmonton.ca 7 classes, $28.00 per registrant.

• Swimming (Making Waves)

 NAIT Pool  swimming@teamedmonton.ca • Tennis

 Kinsmen Sports Centre  Sundays, 12pm-3pm

 tennis@teamedmonton.ca • Ultimate Frisbee  Sundays Summer Season starts July 12th  ultimatefrisbee@teamedmonton.ca E-mail if interested.

• Volleyball, Free To Be Intermediate

 Amiskiwacy Academy (101 Airport Road)  volleyball@teamedmonton.ca • Volleyball, Free To Be Recreational

 Mother Teresa School (9008 - 105 Ave)  recvolleyball@teamedmonton.ca  Outdoor season, Sundays, 3-5pm

Samsara Yoga----------------------  2-3:30pm See Team Edmonton Men Talking with Pride----------------  7-9pm See Pride Centre of Edmonton Ballroom Dancing--------------  7:30-8:30pm See Team Edmonton Friday, February 5th

Snowballs III------------------------  All Day Feb7 See Team Edmonton • Women’s Lacrosse

 Sharon: 780-461-0017  Pam: 780-436-7374 Open to women 21+, experienced or not, all are welcome. Call for info.

Womonspace

 780-482-1794  womonspace@gmail.com  www.womonspace.ca

Youth Understanding Youth

 Edmonton Pride Centre, Main Space Upstairs

 yuy@shaw.ca  www.members.shaw.ca/yuy

A place where LGBTQ youth under 25 can gather to have fun and learn about themselves and others in a safe, supportive, and caring environment.

• Sports and Recreation

 Pride Centre, 9540 - 111 Ave  Brendan: 780-488-3234  brendan@pridecentreofedmonton.org

GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine #76, February 2010

June 2010

Pride---------------------------------------  TBA

Jun 11Jun20 July 2010

Camp fYrefly---------------------------  All Day See Camp fYrefly Jul22Jul25

 http://www.rodeodrive.ca His and hers fetish wear, toys, jewelry, etc.

The Travelling Tickle Trunk

 9923 - 82 Avenue  780-469-6669  www.travelingtickletrunk.com

Wares & Wear Ventures Inc. See Canada - Retail Stores.

Products & Services Cruiseline

 780-413-7122 trial code 3500  http://www.cruiseline.ca

Telephone classifieds and chat - 18+ ONLY. Interactive Male

Over the Top Designs

 780-974-5269

5 Garage Burger Bar & Grill---------------  10242 106th St  780-423-5014

Rodéo Drive

 11528 - 89th Street  780-474-0413  brendalee@rodeodrive.ca

Leather, Feathers, and Fur---------------- 8pm

By ISCWR at 5 Boots Bar and Lounge

 780-409-3333 trial code 8871  1-800-777-8000  www.interactivemale.com

Restaurants

Retail Stores

Mixer & Silent Auction---------  7-11:30pm  Sawridge Inn (4235 Gateway Blvd)

By Team Edmonton

Sex-positive adult toy store.

Women’s social group, but all welcome at events.

8 Prism Bar & Grill---------------------- See Edmonton - Bars and Clubs.

22

Tuesday, February 9th

ERBA Business Mixer-----------  5:30-7:30pm See Edmonton Rainbow Business Association

Naturalist Gettogether---------------------- ???

See Buck Naked Boys Club  2nd

Legend:  = Monthly Reoccurrance,  = Date (Range),  = Sponsored Event • Running (Arctic Frontrunners)

 Kinsmen Sports Centre, front entrance  running@teamedmonton.ca All genders and levels of runners and walkers are invited to join this free activity.

Youth Understanding Youth------------  7-9pm See Pride Centre of Edmonton

✰

Servicing Calgary, Edmonton & Red Deer exclusively.

Robertson-Wesley United Church

 10209 - 123 St. NW  780-482-1587  jravenscroft@rwuc.org  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!

Directory & Events LETHBRIDGE EVENTS Fridays

Friday Mixer-----------------------------  10pm See GALA/LA

Thursday, February 4th

Monday, February 22nd

March 2010

Geoff Berner/Rae Spoon------------------ 9pm  Henotic (402 - 2 Ave S) With GALA/LA

Board Meeting----------------------------- 7pm

By GALA/LA at Lethbridge HIV Connection

OUT Spoken Workshops---------------  All Day  University of Lethbridge Mar3Mar5

Saturday, February 6th

Queeraoke-------------------------------  10pm  Mix Lounge (103 Mayor Magrath Dr S)

By GALA/LA

Valentines Dance-------------------------- 9pm  Henotic (402 - 2 Ave S)

By GALA/LA

• 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.

Same Gender Speed Dating Ltd.

 780-221-8535  www.samegenderdating.com

An LGBT-focused alternative worship.

• Gay Male Speed Dating

 Boston Pizza Private Party Room, Whyte Ave

 TBA Must pre-register to attend - please contact us.

• Lesbian Speed Dating

 Boston Pizza Private Party Room, Whyte Ave

 TBA Must pre-register to attend - please contact us.

Theatre & Fine Arts Exposure Festival

 http://www.exposurefestival.ca Edmonton’s Queer Arts and Culture Festival.

The Roxy Theatre

 10708 124th Street, Edmonton AB  780-453-2440  www.theatrenetwork.ca

Banff/Canmore Community Groups Mountain Pride

 BOX 4892, BANFF, AB, T1L 1G1

 Brian, 403-431-2569  1-800-958-9632  mountainpride@gaybanff.com  www.gaybanff.com Serving the GLBTQS community in Banff, Canmore, Lake Louise and Area.

Lethbridge Community Groups GALA/LA

 403-308-2893  http://www.galalethbridge.ca

Gay and Lesbian Alliance of Lethbridge and Area.

• Monthly Dances

 Henotic (402 - 2 Ave S) Bring your membership card and photo ID.

• Monthly Potluck Dinners

 McKillop United Church, 2329 - 15 Ave S GALA/LA will provide the turkey...you bring the rest.

Please bring a dish to share that will serve 4-6 people, and your own beverage.

• Support Line

 403-308-2893  Monday OR Wednesday, 7pm-11pm Leave a message any other time.

• Friday Mixer

 The Mix (green water tower) 103 Mayor Magrath Dr S  Every Friday at 10pm Gay & Lesbian Integrity Assoc. (GALIA)

Friday, February 26th

Western Canadian Pride Campout  www.eventmasterinc.net 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.

Theatre & Fine Arts Alberta Ballet

 http://www.albertaballet.com

Frequent productions in Calgary and Edmonton.

GBLTTQQ club on campus.

Canada

• Movie Night

 Room C610, University of Lethbridge

Community Groups

 University of Lethbridge  galia@uleth.ca

Gay Youth Alliance Group

 Betty, 403-381-5260  bneil@chr.ab.ca  Every second Wednesday, 3:30pm-5pm Lethbridge HIV Connection

 1206 - 6 Ave S PFLAG Canada

 lethbridgeab@pflagcanada.ca  www.pflagcanada.com Pride Lethbridge

 lethbridgepridefest@gmail.com

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 Wares & Wear Ventures Inc.  www.wwlatex.com Fetish wear and toys.

 780-980-1977

Products & Services Squirt

 http://www.squirt.org

Website for dating and hook-ups. 18+ ONLY!

Theatre & Fine Arts Broadway Across Canada

 http://www.broadwayacrosscanada.ca

OUTtv

 http://www.outtv.ca

GLBT Television Station.

Red Deer Community Groups 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 Central Alberta AIDS Network Society

 4611-50 Avenue, Red Deer, AB  http://www.caans.org

The Central Alberta AIDS Network Society is the local charity responsible for HIV prevention and support in Central Alberta.

GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine #76, February 2010

23

Theatre

 Photo Caption Text

Beautiful Thing

An Urban English Fairytale In Alberta

By Pam Rocker “Once I believed that when love came to me It would come with rockets, bells and poetry But with me and you, it just started quietly and grew.”

- “It’s Getting Better,” The Mama’s and the Papa’s

Like it or not, February is known as the month of love. For those of us who are unhappily single or even unhappily attached, the abundance of heart shaped decorations, sash-wearing babies with bows and arrows, and cheap chocolates, causes us to curse Hallmark and update our Facebook statuses with bitter diatribes about commercialism.

Those of us who are starry eyed and in love make everyone else sick with our doe-eyed eagerness to buy human sized teddy bears and spend $9.99 on a greeting card that sings “Love Me Tender” when you open it.

Whatever category we find ourselves in, sometimes we’re in the mood for a realistic love story; one that doesn’t involve Katherine Heigl or Ashton Kutcher. Edmonton’s Walterdale Playhouse has just the thing to soothe the savage beast inside us that is prowling for something a little more interesting. Enter, Beautiful Thing, a play about working class teens finding love in a bleak housing project in London. Written by Jonathan Harvey (a writer for Coronation Street and most recently, Beautiful People), this sharp English comedy covers the gamut from the serious subject of physical abuse to a drugged out Mama Cass worshipper, and the sparks of hope and romance that can be born in a grim environment.

This isn’t your run-of-the-mill cheesy romance, says Justen Bennett, director of the Walterdale production of the play.

“While Beautiful Thing has some tenderness, I wouldn’t call it sentimental. There are rough sides to these characters. People insult each other in this play, they tease one another, they fight, and underneath it all they do care for one another. It’s tender, but it’s real; it’s not sentimental.”

This will mark the first time that Beautiful Thing has been produced in Alberta, although it has had a full life since its start in the early 90’s. Bennett talks about the play’s beginnings in England. “When it premiered in the UK in 1993, Beautiful Thing was one of the very few plays about gay culture that didn’t deal

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GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine #76, February 2010

with oppression or AIDS and death. Jonathan Harvey subtitled it ‘An Urban Fairytale’ because there is a happy ending; it is a love story. That was very new for the time.”

For its time, a more positive look at sexuality was indeed hard to find. In essence, the play was risky even to the openminded, because people were used to darker subject material on stage, and not-so-happy endings. This shift in focus may be why it struck such a chord, so much so that it was made into a film in 1996. If The Mama’s and The Papa’s makes you feel all groovy and warm inside, you’ll love the soundtrack, as every song is performed by them. Although it’s been well over a decade since its release, it’s still revered as a significant film, having just taken fifth place on AfterElton.com’s 2009 poll of the Fifty Greatest Gay Movies.

Bennett notes the importance and relevance of the story, both in the past and present. “For me, Beautiful Thing is no longer an edgy play, and that’s fantastic. That a story about two young boys simply falling in love is regarded by many, not as a threat or even as a gay play, but as a love story, just shows how far the GLBT movement has progressed. There are, however, still roadblocks. Even in Alberta with recent government decisions such as de-listing sex change surgeries and Bill 44, the GLBT community faces forms of discrimination. It’s important to be out there with stories like this that remind everyone there is far more we share in the human experience that makes us the same, than makes us different.”

An emerging local director, actor, and sometime playwright, Bennett recently wrote and directed Addition: An Unconventional Love Story at the 2009 Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival. Addition is a comedy about a loving gay couple who decide to bring a third into their bed (now that romantic evenings filled with Scrabble just aren’t cutting it any more). It received 4.5 stars from Edmonton’s Vue Weekly. There will be a reading of the play at a fundraiser for HIV Edmonton this coming April.

Considering Bennett’s history both in breaking conventions and with comedy, it’s a good bet that the wit and heart of Harvey’s Beautiful Thing will shine right on through the foggy streets of London. The show opens on February 10th and if you’re stuck for a Valentine’s date idea or can’t stand the thought of sitting at home in your sweatpants, they have two shows on the 14th.

So even if we disagree on our support of Hallmark, maybe we can still all agree on the power of a great story to pull ourselves outside of our heads and believe in the magical yet elusive possibility of a crazy little thing called love.

Beautiful Thing February 10th–20th, 8pm Walterdale Playhouse (10322 83 Avenue) 2pm matinee on Valentine’s Day www.walterdaleplayhouse.com Tickets from $12 to $16, 780-420-1757 or www.tixonthesquare.ca Can also be purchased at the door (cash only) one-hour prior to performance.

Thursday, February 11, is 2-for-1 Thursday! Bring a friend and enjoy the show. http://www.gaycalgary.com/a1558

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Politics

Nevada’s Legal Brothels Go Male, But Not Gay

By Stephen Lock Dolly Parton’s Miss Mona may have had the best little whorehouse in Texas but it’s Nevada where such brothels are legal.

Up to now, Nevada’s legal brothels have only employed women but The Shady Lady Ranch’s Bobbi Davis and her husband Jim are out to change that, despite opposition from some quarters within Nevada’s surprisingly conservative brothel community.

The Nye County Board has, after months of sometimes rancorous debate, given permission for the Davis’ to hire “a few good serviceoriented men” to work at their brothel near Death Valley.

Nevada’s brothels are an interesting remnant of the state’s wild Gold Rush era when enterprising women from “back East” established bawdy houses in the territory’s rough and tumble, and predominately male, mining camps.

The brothels, while legal in much of the state, are banned in such gambling meccas as Las Vegas and Reno. State legislators are historically reluctant to tax the establishments, apparently fearing to do so would “legitimize” the enterprises. Legal brothels are seen by many Nevadans as the state’s ”dirty little secret.”

Even those involved in the trade tend to be resistant to any change or opening up of the industry. When attempts by some owners were made to add porn stars to their existing staff, they were met with resistance from some other brothel owners.

When Davis, along with the American Civil Liberties Union, sought to overturn the state’s ban on advertising of brothels, it created a firestorm of debate within the trade, with many owners fearing such publicity would focus unwanted attention on them and result in their brothels being shut down. While none of the approximately 25 legally-operated brothels were affected, many owners continue to prefer to operate “off the grid” and are wary of any undue attention.

Davis’ move to bring in male workers prompted George Flint, a long time lobbyist for the Nevada Brothel Association, to publicly state such a move would be disastrous, likening the move to the devastating attack on Pearl Harbour which forced the United States to declare war against Japan and enter WWII. He has hinted that brothels offering gay sex - a choice each prostitute, as an independent contractor, would be free to make - might sour some legislators on the entire brothel system.

Flint, despite referencing a historical catastrophe to shore up his arguments against the move to hire male workers, appears to be unaware of historical fact. During debate at the Nye County Board meeting regarding the proposal, Flint was quoted as emphatically stating, “This is the first time in the history of the world…that men have been licensed to sell sex. It’s never been done!”

History is filled with accounts of registered, licensed, and “legal” male prostitutes. Even in our modern era male escorts, while technically not “legal” if engaging in sex for pay, they are nonetheless licensed with municipal authorities who turn a blind eye to what escorts of either gender are actually engaging in. The Nevada proposal simply brings it out of the shadows and creates an atmosphere of openness the industry can only benefit from.

Furthermore, this is not the first time Nye County has faced this issue. In 2005, infamous “Hollywood Madame” Heidi Fleiss announced she was moving to Pahrump, in southern Nye County, and opening a “stud farm.” She opened a Laundromat instead.

However, Davis’ proposal has created considerable interest.

Davis has apparently received over 1,000 applications from men interested in working at the Shady Lady Ranch. To date, there appears to be only one male worker, Markus, and eight females.

Markus, a former Marine with self-admittedly little sexual experience, prefers to be called a gigolo or a ”surrogate lover”, and has stated in a couple of interviews he will only ”entertain” women and that, while he has the utmost respect for the gay community, his “sphincter is not for sale.”

Davis has held off hiring more men until all legal and bureaucratic hurdles are cleared. Her last hurdle is dealing with the Nye County Licensing and Liquor Board, which is made up of five county commissioners and Sheriff Tony DeMeo who, unlike Burt Reynolds’ Sheriff Ed Earl in The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas, has been openly skeptical of Davis’ plan.

DeMeo, along with Flint and Dennis Hof (owner of another legal brothel, the Moonlite Bunny Ranch), expressed concerns about monitoring the spread of infectious diseases, despite current female prostitutes being required to have weekly cervical checkups for STDs and having state health regulators already clear the way for male sex workers by agreeing to institute urethral exams. There has been no word on whether rectal exams will also be instituted for either gender.

It is quite apparent what the real concern is and Davis, despite wanting to hire male workers, addressed the issue.

“It seems the biggest hoopla is a great fear in some people’s minds that some kind of homosexual activity might go on,” she said.

“Why panic I don’t understand…it’s not my intent to encourage or promote or to turn my business into a ‘gay property.’ “ This, along with Markus’ assertion he will be a ”woman-only” sort of guy, appears to me to support the underlying homophobia here rather than challenge it. If a legal brothel became a “gay property”, so what? If a male sex trade worker refuses to even consider allowing men access to him, either as a top or a bottom (and Markus seems to assume ”entertaining” men necessitates his being a bottom) what does that say about sexual attitudes still prevalent on this continent?

What is also often missing from similar discussions is the recognition of gender differences when it comes to how individuals approach sex. I suppose it is a misplaced concern about appearing sexist.

If Davis is successful in her bid - and I hope she is - she simply will not find any significant increase in female clientele. Women, generally speaking, do not approach casual sex the same way the majority of men do.

For whatever reason, men rarely have an issue with separating “sex” from “making love.” Certainly within gay male communities there is ample evidence we are fully capable of engaging in “anonymous sex” and do so quite frequently be it via a bar pickup, logging onto Internet sites, cruising parks and t-rooms, or going to the baths. I do not see this as negative whatsoever. In fact, I think it is something to celebrate.

Will heterosexual women utilize this new-found access to men willing to engage in casual sex for pay? Possibly, but it is a huge leap and entails disengaging from a myriad of social proscriptions, many of which most of us are not even aware we are ensnared in.

Heterosexual men have always availed themselves of opportunities to ”get their rocks off” with little social or political repercussions apart from the odd tsk-tsking when doing so has been cause for scandal - such as the case with one high-profile politician, for instance. It is generally seen as “boys will be boys.”

Is this a double standard? Absolutely. When men pursue sex it’s seen as a biological imperative, something that men do, perhaps not what decent, family men do but of course it’s known decent family men do do it (now there’s a double standard for you!).

When women pursue sex in a similar casual manner it’s seen as their loose morals, proof that the woman in question is nothing more than a slut and a tramp.

Continued on Page 33 

GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine #76, February 2010

25

Adult

Adult Film Review Bear Hunt, Dirty!

By Jerome Voltero

3D Porn Stars: Vol 1 By: From: Genre: Cast: Story: Visual: Faves:

Dominic Ford Adult Depot Novelty    Arpad Miklos, Manuel Torrez, Vinnie D’Angelo

With all of the recent buzz about 3D movies and television sets, this porno brings us one final blast from the past. If you can’t find your old pair of red/blue 3D glasses don’t worry – Adult Depot has a pair that they can loan you.

Otherwise Don’s Hobby Shop on Centre Street has a ton that they’re looking to get rid of for a reasonable price.

There’s a reason why this type of 3D technology hit the ceiling very fast, and why it’s not very common in movies today. Using color filters, of course, limits your ability to see the actual colors in the film. The newer technology at the movie theatres uses polarized glasses, and a special projector to produce their non-tinted 3D effect. The new 3D televisions work roughly the same way, however they haven’t caught on enough yet. I fully expect to see more 3D pornos in the near future, but in the meantime this is a preview of better things to...“come”.

Considering a 3D camera is no easy thing to come by, I was a little disappointed that they really didn’t use it to its full potential. Sure the guys jump out at you while they’re ploughing each other into the couch, but they could have done more to find an interesting environment, or really blown our minds with some panning shots. Also, they need to be careful when doing zoomed in shots because when 3D limbs go off the edge of the screen, the effect can be lost.

Nevertheless, the novelty of seeing hotties like Arpad Miklos and Manuel Torrez in full form is kinda worth it!

Well we are about half-way through winter, and if you aren’t lucky enough to escape for a holiday then maybe it’s time for your booster shot of warm climate fantasy. Spanish Heat, available now at Priape, features some gorgeous Spanish studs, lounging around with very little clothing in the arid climate and scenic rolling hills of the Spanish countryside.

In the first scene, Denis de Nello and Maikel Cash are relaxing by their private swimming pool with nothing better to do but dick around with each other. The scene to follow builds on this as two very hot country hikers, Lucio Saints and Fabio Costa, stroll by the same pool and ask for a chance to cool down with Cash. But jealousy is afoot, as de Nello feels excluded, and lashes out in other ways.

Naturally my favourites were the boys with facial hair, however all of the bodies were smooth and well built, with tattoos and that irresistible olive tan! Set against beautiful scenery and signature Latino architecture, you can almost feel the heat.

While You’re At It...

Road Trip Vol 11: San Francisco By: Jocks Studios From: Priape Genre: College/Twink Cast:  Story:  Visual: 

Pirate’s Booty By: Adult Source Media From: Adult Depot Genre: Animated Cast:  Story:  Visual: 

Priape Calgary - Canada’s Favourite Gay Store

1322 17th Avenue SW • 403-215-1800 Adult Depot - Over 3500 Gay Titles for Sale or Rent 152 58th Avenue SW • 403-258-2777

Spanish Heat By: From: Genre: Cast: Story: Visual: Faves:

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Alpha Male Media Priape Latino    Fabio Costa, Alberto José, Ruben Rodriguez

GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine #76, February 2010

http://www.gaycalgary.com/a1560

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Q Scopes

 Arts - From Page 8

“Don’t worry, Aries!”

Mars retrograde in Leo sextile Saturn in Libra can help repair relationships and politics, but that takes humility and reflection! Jupiter in Pisces sextile Pluto in Capricorn should offer opportunities through spiritual examples and charity to fix broken social structures. Alas, these pairs clash with each other, arousing more polarization and reactionary violence. Think twice before speaking about religion and politics, or any other relationship problems!



ARIES (March 20 – April 19): Showing off and jokes at others’ expense are likely to backfire. Your best work will show up better if you just keep your nose to the grindstone and let people see your efforts. Don’t worry. They will be noticed!

TAURUS (April 20 – May 20): Your efforts for your family or community may seem underappreciated. Feel free to take a break any time you like. Your work is valued, but it doesn’t all rest on your shoulders. Let others chip in.

GEMINI (May 21- June 20): Your mouth is dangerously ahead of your brain. If you can rein it in (good luck!), you can say exactly the right thing and solve important problems.

Exploring new erotic paths can help you focus, but keep that in its place!

CANCER (June 21- July 22): It’s easy to blame money troubles on others, malfeasant bankers and politicians, sure, but you – not your partner or family members – are responsible for your situation. Their advice is more helpful as a springboard than taken as is.

LEO (July 23 – August 22): All your roaring passion and angst is good for self-exploration. Don’t make others take it too seriously. An older friend has great insights, though you may not like them.

VIRGO (August 23 – September 22): You need to conserve spiritual and material resources, but social demands make that difficult. Creative selectivity is one of your talents. Suggestions from your partner, or a spiritual advisor, can be helpful.

LIBRA (September 23 – October 22): The future ain’t what it used to be. The entire world has missed opportunities.

Don’t beat yourself up on that score. Give yourself credit for the work that you do, and adjust your long-term plans and hopes accordingly.

SCORPIO (October 23 – November 21): Your best efforts to get ahead feel counter-productive while your ruler, Mars, is retrograde. It’s just going to be that way for a while. Coruler Pluto suggests creative communications now to build a base for effective actions after March 9.

SAGITTARIUS (November 22 – December 20): What you have learned in your studies and travels can help you better to appreciate the values of your tradition, which can in turn charge your batteries and ground you better for further explorations.

CAPRICORN (December 21 – January 19): You’re lately at the top of your game, but there’s still always room for improvement.

Learning a new skill, even some simple basics, can have a huge catalytic effect to open brilliant opportunities.

AQUARIUS (January 20 – February 18): You need to figure out what’s important for you. Anything your partner does seems wrong only because of your own internal questions.

Reflect, don’t react! Your partner can help you focus on traditional, old ideas that can offer new insights.

PISCES (February 19 – March 19): You’re enjoying a spell of good luck. Despite that, your work is likely to go oddly awry anyway, so you may as well go out on a limb and risk genius. Feedback from colleagues will disperse risk and encourage your genius.



 



 

 

 



Jack Fertig, a professional astrologer since 1977, is available for personal and business consultations in person in San Francisco, or online everywhere. He can be reached at 415-864-8302, through his Web site at www.starjack.com.

 “Charged Particles in Motion” painting by Kent Monkman

some aspects of the work that I appreciated more than others.

I always responded well to his films, the paintings seemed kind of coded to me, and maybe that’s still true. But having really concentrated on them and given them attention, I’ve discovered that there’s a considerable consistency of imagery and inference, that not only connects all of the paintings but connects the films and the performance work.”

The Monkman painting featured on the cover, ”Si je t’aime prends garde à toi” (If I love you, beware!), uses James Earle Fraser’s classic sculpture, End of the Trail [1915] as one of its inspirations, but flips the implications entirely, shares Portis.

“Fraser’s sculpture - a defeated, weary, Indian warrior on a horse, this sinewy figure with little life left in it, became a strong image of a closing of chapters. In Kent’s work, this gesture of weariness is now one of regeneration. The warrior is coming back to life, his muscles are rippling, and now being bent over is a gesture of acceptance and adoration. It’s a complex image, and Kent straddles all of this ancestry and history beautifully.”

Looking at the already extensive collection of Monkman’s creations and noting that he has showings scheduled for 2011 and 2012, it’s hard to imagine that he has any downtime. But he’s not complaining. “I do take great pleasure in my work and traveling,” says Monkman. “Even if I’m not applying myself to the work I have ideas floating inside my head but it’s never a burden because I love my work so much. It’s energizing, never tiring, and I get so much out of it.”

If you’re looking for a chance to see this accomplished and exceptional artist in person, Monkman will be in attendance at the launch party for The Triumph of Mischief on February 13th at the Glenbow Museum. He is also in attendance at the Trépanier Baer Gallery in Calgary on February 11th, where some of his most recent works, including the monumental The Death of Adonis and Sunday In The Park, will be exhibited. An exciting chance to see these works before they head to the 17th Biennale of Sydney, Australia, this May.

The Triumph of Mischief Launching: February 13th Glenbow Museum, Calgary www.glenbow.org http://www.gaycalgary.com/a1552

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27

Gossip certainly intended), about three straight couples deciding that it’s time to try group sex for the first time. And while it’s almost a certainty that they will all come to some sobering realizations about themselves – guiltless orgies are for canceled TV shows like Swingtown, really – at least one glimmer of comedic hope rests with the presence of comic Laura Silverman (who co-stars as “herself” on her sister’s sitcom The Sarah Silverman Program).

With any luck it’ll be more freewheeling than the average PSA for monogamy.

Logo greenlights more RuPaul and controversy

 Kristin Chenoweth, Daisy Pusher

Deep Inside Hollywood Kerry and Kristin sittin’ in a tree…

Romeo San Vicente In the ongoing development saga of the slow-to-boil Dusty Springfield movie, the original question seems to have been definitively answered – and after a protracted period of “she is” and then “oh wait, no she isn’t,” the starring role has gone (finally!) to Romeo’s favorite Pushing Daisies alum Kristin Chenoweth. That’s the good news, since we can’t think of anyone who doesn’t love her. And the hopefully even-better news is the possible addition of Kerry Washington, who’s now circling the role of Springfield’s love interest. It’s all negotiations and talks right now, but the Ray co-star has already appeared in the lesbian-themed She Hate Me and played a lesbian in the indie film The Dead Girl, opposite the late Brittany Murphy. Furthermore, she’s beautiful, she’s talented, she’d be great in the role and, frankly, four out of five lesbians surveyed agree that it would be really hot to see her making out with Chenoweth.

Gregg Araki goes Kaboom When your most recent film, a goofy stoner-comedy called Happy Face, gets unjustly ignored and barely released, what’s your next move as a director? Go back to your roots and make a hot, young teenage sci-fi comedy thriller about sexual awakenings, that’s what. Gregg Araki’s latest film, Kaboom, stars Kelly Lynch (The L Word) and Araki mainstay James Duval alongside sexy young stars Thomas Dekker (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles), Juno Temple (Atonement) and Haley Bennett (The Haunting of Molly Hartley). The plot involves a Twin Peaks-style small town mystery, some hallucinogenic cookies and a lot of boundary-blurring sexual connections. Translation: it’s what you already know and –presumably – love about Araki’s weirdly cool worldview. Be on the lookout later this year for an explosion of old-school New Queer Cinema in a theater that shows that sort of thing near you.

Cummings Farm hosts an orgy After the low-key success of 2009’s indie film Humpday, the one about the two straight men playing a game of Gay Chicken by planning to make a video of themselves having sex, it’s no surprise to see other scruffy, alt-comedies about nervous heterosexuals experimenting with naughty action coming down the pipeline. So welcome to Cummings Farm (pun almost 28

GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine #76, February 2010

RuPaul’s Drag Race was only the beginning. The “Supermodel of The World” is trning into quite the media mogul and, it seems, about to turn cable channel Logo into the Drag Network with his new series RuPaul’s Drag U. Stepping into the void left behind by Queer Eye For The Straight Guy, the premise of RPDU involves drag queens showing up at the front door of unsuspecting citizens and giving life makeovers. What this sort of intrusion will entail is a mystery, but Romeo assumes it won’t involve tucking lessons. Meanwhile, Logo has also given the go-ahead to Kept, a reality show sure to anger a whole bunch of people – hilariously so, by documenting the lives of pretty young kept boys in New York City, their rich, doting sugar daddies and those who aspire to that sort of lifestyle. In other words, it will be totally gross and Romeo is going to watch every minute. Coming soon!

Romeo San Vicente has never “kept” anything but a really adorable pug, several dozen pairs of really expensive shoes and a lot of insanely hot men clamoring for more of his attention. He can be reached care of this publication.

http://www.gaycalgary.com/a1562

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 Mariah Carey, still inspiring

Mariah and Me

How the Diva Changed a Life–and her Own

By Chris Azzopardi

So Mariah Carey isn’t just that vocally inimitable pop goddess who belts the hell out of “Hero,” like she said during a press conference recently.

I know that now, and am constantly reminded by some of her loopy antics (ice cream, anyone?), very public break-ups/ breakdowns and that one recent sloshed award-acceptance speech that made a big buzz.

Bigger, anyway, than her R&B-throwback flop Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel, released in September. That, along with its remix reissue due in March, is what brings Mariah on the road during a theater outing titled The Angels Advocate Tour.

Her last trek, to support 2005’s juggernaut The Emancipation of Mimi, was in arenas, so why’s Mimi going mini? Despite the bomb it’s backing, a real singer, like the Celines and Whitneys of yesteryear, aren’t the easiest sell in this post-vocal world, when voices sound a lot less human than they used to (even Mariah, of all people, has turned to Auto-Tune). And here we have the queer-worshiped warbler, trying to be more human, more “imperfect,” more drunk than she ever was publicly, stammering through that speech like your average boozer – and then not even covering up for it. “I have a sense of humor,” she defended days later, “and that’s basically what gets me through life.”

Mariah helped carry me through much of mine. I was what she calls her uber-fans – a “lamb.” The proof was in my bedroom: walls plastered with posters, two double-inch binders full of magazine clippings and rare memorabilia. I’d hound musicstore clerks to claim some of their promo gear, once fetching a huge cardboard display rack. That became the spot for my Mariah CDs – all of them, which turned out to be a lot more than the 12 most people thought she had (this includes imports from other countries, singles, live bootlegs and often multiple copies of the same album, just in case I wore the first one out).

Gee, how we grow up and realize that life isn’t just rainbows and butterflies and Mariah, who seemed to be this bigger-than-life lady. It’s that angelic, superhuman shroud I miss about Mariah.

How is it that she’s a real person who does her duty on the toilet and bleeds when she gets a paper cut? She used to be God. So she’s not the savior – and, despite her whole anniversariesnot-birthdays motto, she turns a year older every year, too. As I have, I’ve expanded my music-listening loves (everyone around me seems happy about that), but there’s still something that’s very nostalgic about Mariah, for which my unwavering fondness is like the rock she once was, and sometimes still is, to me.

Call it corny, but many of us had one – a celeb crush who felt like a friend. For many of my gay peers, that was Madonna. But I always related more to Mariah. Her music saw me through a myriad of drama: family turmoil, identity issues and self-esteem struggles.

At her pinnacle, and at my lowest, she released Butterfly, 1997’s reflective opus. It wasn’t her best-selling album, but it was her best – full of revealing, minimalistic ballads that were heartbreaking, including a cathartic gospel song about being an outsider. Oh, the money it saved me in therapy. Mostly, anyway. There was the first time I saw her live 10 years ago, blowing over 500 bucks to see her sing in Chicago. She was there, and so was I. How surreal, I thought.

When I met Mariah backstage in Cleveland years later, that magical aura once enveloping her had completely lifted. As cool and climactic and OMG-that’s-Mariah as I remember it, it was also like learning the secret to a magician’s trick.

In the way her handlers wouldn’t allow fans to give hugs (I stole one anyway) and in how she’s towering over everyone else in the group photo that was taken, she still seemed very majestic – all statuesque and untouchable and flawlessly shot from the one side, hand on hip.

But the Mariah we see now – the one who unabashedly rambles in buzzed sex-kitten purrs – seems to care less about nurturing a specific image, less guarded and more love-it-or-leave-it than ever before. And why the heck should she care? She’s left her mark (with some of the biggest heels known to women and drag queens) – the awards, record-breakers, the criminal American Idol wannabes all speak of her accomplishments in a remarkable two-decade career.

Being herself wasn’t always one of them. But now she seems happily married to Nick Cannon, forsaking vanity for a frumpy role in indie-sleeper “Precious,” fully proud of her ta-tas and more Mimi than ever before on Memoirs, cracking ridiculous jokes (there’s that sense of humor!). Finally, Mariah’s Mariah, or Mimi, or whatever she wants to call herself – and she doesn’t really give a damn about what you think.

These days, she’s inspiring in a whole new way.

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29

Sports

LGBT Hockey

Running for the Fun of It

Help Give Canada’s National Sport a Queer Slant Calgary and Edmonton Frontrunners

By Sam Casselman

By Sam Casselman

In a country that considers hockey an integral part of its national identity, it’s surprising that the LGBT community of Edmonton has never had team of its own.

According to Brian Parker, GLBTQ Hockey Coordinator for Team Edmonton, “there have been a few attempts in the past to get a team going, but there has never been enough interest.”

Have you even been interested in running? If you are anything like me, the thought of running for the fun of it is somewhat of an oxymoron. However, the fact of the matter is that running is extremely good for us, a population inundated by health problems related to inactivity. Edmonton’s Arctic Frontrunners Club and Calgary Frontrunners Club would like to change our attitudes about running by inviting us to join them in an activity to keep us happy and healthy.

In the past, through perseverance and with the assistance of Team Edmonton, thirty individuals showed enough interest to form a team. However with not enough financial commitment to cover the pricey hockey rental bookings, this initiative did not last.

Parker hopes to start up a Team Edmonton queer hockey night this fall if people commit. It is hoped that this will lead to a one night a week hockey night at a rink that is central, preferably close to downtown.

“The first part would include practicing and teaching skating, puck handling, etc., skills to the group. We would play shinny in the second half of the night,” explains Parker.

Until that time, interested athletes should take the time to register in Western Cup’s One Day Hockey Event at this year’s tournament, to be held on Friday, April 2nd at the Fairview Hockey Arena. It will be happening from 9am to 7pm at a day cost per individual of $55.00 before March 1, or $80.00 after. Registration ends on March 15th. Each game has three periods of 18 minutes. All players get to play 4 games, changing teams between each one. Organizers warn that there is a zero tolerance policy for fighting or abusive behavior or language of any kind.

All individuals are welcome to take part, as the event is co-ed.

Make sure to bring your full hockey gear, including helmet with a half visor or full face mask, and hockey jersey. Pucks will be provided, as well as jerseys for those that don’t bring one.

Show some of that Canadian patriotism by playing our national sport during the Western Cup. And furthermore, why not make it a routine by signing up for the Team Edmonton league in the fall? You won’t regret it, eh?

Brian Parker: hockey@teamedmonton.ca

Calgary Frontrunners Saturdays, 9am Eau Claire YMCA Calgaryfrontrunners@shaw.ca

Western Cup Hockey Friday April 2nd, 9am-7pm Fairview Hockey Arena (8038 Fairmont Drive SE) www.westerncup.com

Edmonton Arctic Frontrunners Sundays, 10am Emily Murphy Park (spring/summer/fall) Kinsmen Centre (winter) running@teamedmonton.ca

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The Calgary Frontrunners Club was formed in 1991 after Calgarians who participated in the 1990 Gay Games in Vancouver led an effort to promote health and an active lifestyle to the Calgary LGBT community.

Currently they run with a core group of 20 runners and walkers of various skill levels, both gay and straight. The focus of the club to provide a free, friendly, and social atmosphere where anyone can feel comfortable and share an interest in fitness, without being competitive.

Like clockwork, every Saturday throughout the year at 9am, the Calgary Frontrunners meet at the Eau Claire YMCA. Tim, Calgary Frontrunners organizer, emphasizes the variety of routes and participants each week.

“We support a walking group that meets on Saturday mornings with us. This is an effort to include those who do not wish to run. …We run or walk in groups that organically form after starting out together, according to ability, fitness, or even by the conversation you get into that particular day.”

Typical routes include the Crowchild underpass, Edworthy Park, Nose Hill Park, Calgary Zoo, or the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary. Afterwards coffee/brunch is usually held at any number of locations.

Further north, the Edmonton Arctic Front runners is similarly a free recreational running and walking group for Edmonton’s LGBT community. All are welcome, and similarly the group runs all year long, every Sunday at 10am. They meet at Emily Murphy Park in the spring, summer, and fall and at the Kinsmen Centre in the winter.

Bill Addison, organizer of Edmonton Frontrunners encourages individuals of all skill sets to come for a run to try them out – “bring a sense of humour,” he adds. Afterwards the group goes for a post-run coffee at Leva or Tesora. “We are coffee snobs.”

So, bring your running shoes, and dress for the unpredictable Albertan weather.

GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine #76, February 2010

Arts

 Queer athletes at the Olympic Games will be greeted by “Slapshotolus,” a unique bronze creation by Edmund Haakonson

Slapshotolus

Olympic Bronze in a Unique Form

By Dallas Barnes The Vancouver Winter Olympic Games are promising to be a year of firsts. For the athletes it could be their first Olympic Games, their first medal, or even their first time on an airplane. But for some, it may be their first time competing as an out Olympian.

Another first, The Pan Pacific Whistler Village Centre which is at the core of all the action, will be hosting Pride House, a venue available to all gay and lesbian athletes as well as their supporters.

Sitting central in this Pride House will be another first: Slapshotolus, a sculpture by Edmund Haakonson described as “a personification of the philosophical ideal of living one’s life true and honest unto one’s self, with a noble character and pure spirit.”

Edmund Haakonson is a revered sculptor with a concentration in human form as his subjects. Slapshotolus, a play on Discobulous a famous ancient Greek Sculpture meaning “the Discus Thrower”, is a unique piece in that it gives an ancient, stoic quality to an all too familiar form; the hockey player. As Haakonson puts it, “The image of ancient nude sculpture makes perfect sense to us, the image of a hockey player makes perfect sense, the hybrid of the two has a decidedly amusing result. There is something of the absurd in a hockey player wearing only skates, gloves and helmet, especially for anyone who has actually played hockey.”

This absurdity was on purpose though. “Slapshotolus is a connecting of the ancient sacred games and the modern Winter Games. The artist has taken the Classical Greek image that is an expression of high ideals, and given it a twenty-first century make over, a modern face. The body is that of an individual, not the formal, stylized convention of ancient Greek art. This recognizes the focus on individual achievement in our culture as opposed to the pre-eminence of the collective in the ancient. I have kept the body nude to acknowledge a millennia old tradition in art of what a nude symbolizes. The nude human form in art is used as a symbol of purity, innocence, truth. Nude = naked truth, if you will.

The representative sport was chosen because hockey is the winter sport in Canada.”

This project has been a long time in the making. “I first had the idea for the sculpture about six years ago. I was not able, at that time, to pursue realizing the piece because of the expense of working in bronze. Because there is a direct connection in the sculpture between the ancient sacred games and the modern Winter Olympics, it seemed to me that now was the time that this

work needed to happen. A year and a half ago I applied for and received a project grant from the Canada Council for the Arts that allowed me to produce the sculpture.”

This is a welcome acquisition for the first ever Pride House in Whistler. “We are so honoured to be able to have such a beautiful and moving piece of art to be one of our centre pieces at the 2010 Pride House,” says Dean Nelson, CEO of GayWhistler. “The inspiration and story behind Slapshotolus is perfectly aligned with the values and objectives of the Pride House.”

The Mission of the Pride House is simple: “to provide an open and welcoming venue for the LGBT community and their allies to celebrate together diversity and inclusiveness through sport.” They recognize that many of the athletes coming to Vancouver represent countries that do not accept homosexuality. In fact, many of these countries may even imprison or execute the athlete if they knew.

What better way to show how accepting Canada is by providing a safe place for all LGBT members and their supporters. Moreover, how amazing it is to have a sculpture such as Slapshotolus as the central piece?

The Olympics have come a long way. When you tune in to watch  Nicholas Hoult your favourite athletes in the weeks to come, take notice of how Canada has stepped up to accept all individuals regardless of cultural restrictions. It is good to know that we have people like Edmund Haakonson and organizations such as Pride House to recognize how amazing our human diversity really is, and yet how similar we all really are.

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31

Trans-Identity

The Biological Case for Transsexuality An Overview and Analysis

By Mercedes Allen Something I’m often asked about is the research done in recent years that point to a biological component to transsexuality.

I get that question both from cisgender (non-transgender) people daring me to present proof that would validate trans identities, and from transsexual and transgender people wanting some understanding of what makes them trans. In both cases, that’s an awful lot to stake on a field of study, and to tackle that, I feel it’s best to present a brief overview, and put that all into a larger context.

I should preface from the beginning that the science currently under study pertains specifically to transsexuals. Other transgender identities (genderqueer, crossdressers, bi-gendered persons) haven’t really been consciously integrated into researchers’ studies at all, thus far, so it is impossible to say if the data proves or disproves anything pertaining to anything but transsexual identities.

“As Nature Made Him” Dr. John Money famously recounted how an infant was brought to him after a circumcision accident in 1965, whereupon he concluded that the best thing the family could do for the child was to intervene surgically and raise him as a girl. Referred to as “John / Joan” in his writings throughout the 1970s and 80s, Money trumpeted the case study as evidence that gender was entirely socially-constructed and therefore malleable. The reality wasn’t so straightforward.

“John / Joan” had in fact struggled throughout childhood and adolescence, constantly asserting a sense of being a boy, despite the parents’ best efforts to affirm female traits and discourage male ones. Finally, the truth came out, and by the time he met Rolling Stone contributor John Colapinto (who chronicled his story in the book, “As Nature Made Him”), David Reimer had transitioned back to living as male. Unfortunately, Reimer’s story ended tragically in 1994, when a broken marriage, suicide of his twin brother and the loss of all his money in an investment scam drove him to take his own life.

David Reimer’s story woke the medical world to a reality that gender is not so changeable, that biology does indeed play a part in our identities.

Opponents of the trans community have sometimes pointed to this as proof that a person can’t change their sex. Reimer’s story, on the other hand, has in fact resonated with transsexuals, who struggle with the same sense of being not the gender that their body indicates.

“Male and Female Created He Them” There are precedents in nature in which chromosomes, physical sex and / or gender identity have been mismatched. Intersex refers to a large number of conditions in which physical gender variance demonstrably exists (some researchers use the controversial term “Disorders of Sex Development,” but most intersex advocates oppose this terminology as well as the often-accompanying practice of surgically assigning gender at birth).

These conditions include: Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (in which the adrenal glands in usually female-assigned people produce high amounts of androgens); Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (in which the body is unresponsive to the effects of testosterone, causing it to develop as female despite being chromosomally male); 5-alpha-reductase-deficiency; Mosaicism and Chimerism; and less obvious conditions such as Klinefelter’s Syndrome or Turner’s Syndrome. It is important to distinguish that intersexuality is not the same as transsexuality. If there is an overlap, it is likely that transsexuality would be a smaller part of intersex phenomena and not the other way around. Consequently, not all people who are intersex experience a sense of being gender variant or transgender in any way.

With these things in mind, researchers began looking at biology for a proverbial smoking gun that would explain transsexualism. What is emerging is a puzzle – it’s not clear yet how the pieces all fit together, but in each of these cases, quantifiable and repeatable patterns have been found.

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GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine #76, February 2010

It’s In the Genes?

Most of the recent press has surrounded genetic findings since 2006.

The best publicized has been a finding that an elongated androgen receptor gene has a higher-than-typical occurrence in male-to-female transsexuals.

This was not the first study to demonstrate this: many other studies had done so before 2009, but this one had the largest and most quantifiable sample size yet, ruling out random chance and research errors as causes of the findings.

I couldn’t possibly detail all the genetic findings and corroborating studies, other than to say that the volume of study that has accumulated thus far show a likelihood of a chromosomal link to at least some forms of both male-to-female and female-to-male transsexualism. I will, however, list a few relevant links following the article as starting points for anyone interested in delving deeper.

Brain Sex One of the most controversial areas of research has been a finding in which subtle structural differences were found in the brain development of men and women (which has raised some objections in feminist circles – more later), and the physical structures of transsexuals’ brain development more closely resembled those of their identified genders, rather than their birth sex. Newer studies along this line have replicated this with transidentified individuals who have not yet started hormone therapy, ruling this out as a cause.

Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals In 1999, Dr. Scott Kerlin founded a support and advocacy group for male children adversely affected by exposure in utero, to Di-Ethyl Stilbestrol (DES, a synthetic estrogen once administered to pregnant women as a “vitamin” designed to help prevent miscarriage). When DES Sons was only a few months old, a new member raised the issue that he had always felt that he was a girl, and was, in fact, transsexual. This initiated a flood of confessions about other members’ own gender identity issues, and quickly became one of the dominant themes raised by male children of DES births (although not all DES Sons experience transgender leanings). With pharmaceutical companies fearing possible lawsuits, research on DES is underfunded and harder to find than genetic studies or brain sex, but provides a dramatic example of an Endocrine Disrupting Chemical (EDC) that is suspected to influence gender and sex development in the womb.

The EDC theory of transsexuality often speculates that because physical gender and psychological gender develop at different times in early fetal development, the introduction of an interruptive chemical through diet, inhalation, absorption or other methods — usually estrogenic in properties but sometimes androgenic instead — can affect signals sent by the brain during fetal development.

Canadians are probably more familiar with an EDC known as bisphenol A, whose harmful effects resulted in the recall and banning of certain kinds of plastics, sometimes used in the production of baby bottles. Bisphenol A has been shown to have subtle feminizing and cancer-causing effects in animal populations and potential harmful effects to humans, especially young children and infants. The effect on human fetal development is as yet unknown.

Body Maps Phantom Limb Syndrome has been widely studied to date, but researchers have begun applying this idea to transsexuality, theorizing that transsexuals may in fact have an intuitive knowledge of their body as that of their identified gender, rather than their birth sex. Research here is in its infancy, so I can’t yet point to definitive findings. However, the theory looks solid and promising, is consistent with the body squick that many transsexuals experience (making surgery necessary in order to function in social situations and relationships) and also potentially holds discoveries relevant to other phenomena, including Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID, in which a person has an identity in which they are without a particular limb or body part).

 Trans-Identity - Cont’d.

 Politics - Cont’d from page.25

It’s Not Infectious… We Hope….

Then, of course, there is the whole question of exploitation.

Are women in the sex trade exploited? Certainly, at the street prostitute level and possibly within the porn industry as well. It’s a bit blurrier when a woman is a high-priced call-girl or working out of a legal brothel where she is able - or better able, at least - to call the shots and have some say in who she will be with and how it will transpire.

Few raise the issue of exploitation around men in porn or other sex trades unless the males in question are under-age or just “young.”

Of course we as a society have a responsibility to ensure underage girls and boys are not exploited. But the spectre of exploitation in that regard is a whole other issue and we are clearly not talking about under-aged males or females being recruited to work in these brothels. Systems have been in place for years under the Nevada system to safeguard against that, and bringing in male workers will not affect that.

Certainly working as a male prostitute at the Shady Lady is not a ”get rich quick” scheme. Current prices range from $200 for 40minutes, up to $2,000 for the whole night, with a percentage going to the house. Whether the men could pull in that kind of money from women-only clientele remains to be seen.

Perhaps the most curious and bizarre discovery has centered around intracellular bacteria referred to as Cytophaga-like organisms (CLOs) - with Wolbachia being the best known. CLOs appear to induce several reproductive effects in its hosts, feminizing male insects. We don’t yet know if CLOs can affect humans in any way: studies haven’t gone that far yet, but it is currently thought unlikely that they can affect organisms so complex as we.

Next: Adding it All Up It’s important to note that most of the above is an oversimplification.

Greater detail can be found in the studies listed with this article… for starters.

Next month, I want to look at how all of this relates to trans identities, to feminist thought (i.e. the second wave feminist conceptualization of gender as social construct), to medical ethics, to biological predetermination of human behaviour and most importantly just how much legitimacy should really be staked on biological cause.

Visit this article online for the full list of references.

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.

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33

Photography Prince and Princess Ball at Twisted Element - Calgary Photos by Tiffany Thomas - Essence Photography and Craig Taylor

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GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine #76, February 2010

ISCCA Duke and Duchess Show at the Texas Lounge - Calgary

ISCWR Dukes and Diamonds Show at Woody’s and Buddy’s - Edmonton, Photos by B&J

ISCWR An Evening with the Legends at Boots - Edmonton, Photos by B&J

GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine #76, February 2010

35

Lifestyle

Exploring Leather Relationships Part 2 of 3: “Daddies” and “Boys”

By David Stewart In this three part series, leather relationships that exist within a dynamic of dominance and submission are examined. The series continues this month I shed some light on the often misunderstood relationship dynamic of Daddy and boy.

(Editor’s Note: The use of the term “boy” does not in any way refer to a child or otherwise underage individual. It refers to the younger participant in a consensual and legally acceptable relationship.)

Both Master/slave and Daddy/boy relationships consist of a dominant, experienced top and a submissive bottom, but there is a major difference. In Master/ slave, the primary focus is on the Master but with Daddy/boy, the focus is on the boy.

The reason for this lies in the way that participants approach dominance and submission. A Master ultimately cares about his own quality of life above all else, and of course the quality of his slave’s life is bettered by serving the Master. Daddies and their boys see things differently: The Daddy enters the relationship often out of a desire to better the life of a boy who can benefit from his knowledge and experience, while the boy often enters the relationship out of a subconscious desire for this knowledge and experience.

As a result, the Daddy in many ways becomes a father figure in the boy’s life.

The boy might seek his guidance both in and out of leather culture, and the Daddy provides the boy with the wisdom he needs to learn and grow. On the surface and often in the boy’s mind, he is serving his Daddy, but in actuality the relationship is all about the boy. That isn’t to say that the boy is encouraged or even permitted to top, however, his fantasies are desires are brought into play much more readily than a slave’s would be when in a relationship with a Master.

Since many boys involved in this style of relationships are inexperienced or even completely new to leather culture, the play is often very light hearted and warm, with a lot of focus on less intense sensations. Even those who desire heavy play need to work up to mentally and physically handling such a scene. As a result, the Daddy would be more inclined to give the boy his first experience wearing full leather, sharing a cigar, and exploring new sensations – less inclined to strap him to a cross and beat him black and blue. The time may come for the boy to be beaten black and blue, of course, but within a Daddy/boy relationship such a scene would likely be marked with periods of physical intimacy, and this physical intimacy is part of what allows the boy to explore. For boys who had previously only known leathersex as a fantasy within their minds, this establishes a bond and a level of trust between them and their Daddy.

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GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine #76, February 2010

The age difference between Daddy and boy comes with an inherent dynamic of dominance and submission. This happens naturally, as the boy defers to his Daddy often without initial instruction to do so. As a result, there is less focus on protocol or formality between Daddy and boy, and the relationship is less structured and militaristic on the surface. Still, the Daddy may have plans for his boy, lining up a series of experiences intended to introduce the boy to different aspects of leather culture and provide him with the tools he needs to grow even in his everyday life. What appears to be domestic service is actually an exercise in getting the boy organized: having the boy work on his Daddy’s boots until he achieves a mirror shine will ensure that the boy cares for his own boots in a similar way. While there is never a concrete lesson plan, the Daddy sets his sights on what the boy wants to achieve and guides him in that direction.

Unfortunately there are also many misconceptions about this kind of relationship, most common is that it bares incestuous connotations. While father and son roleplay may be a part of some play sessions, those are definitely in the minority, and in no way are the participants actually related.

Another common misunderstanding of paedophilic fantasy stems from the obvious connotations of the words “daddy” and “boy” in a family sense, so I point out that within leather culture it is understood that everybody who engages in Daddy/boy relationships are consenting adults. Furthermore, ageplay (a form of roleplay where participants take on the role of an age that differs from their own) is rare in leather culture.

As a matter of fact, some Daddies and boys may not even have a sexual relationship. The Daddy may be a father figure that mentors the boy, and they may share a certain personal intimacy; however, their relationship may be non-sexual. In this case, the boy often consults his Daddy before playing, asking about what he needs to know about his potential playpartner. This may be extended to after the play session is over, where the boy discusses his play sessions with his Daddy, who helps the boy learn and grow from those experiences.

So in conclusion, the often misunderstood Daddy/boy relationship is a warm, semi-casual dynamic of dominance and submission, and functions as a great introduction to leather culture.

However, in time the boy may want a more intense level of dominance and submission, at which point the relationship may evolve into one that is described as a Sir/boy dynamic.

This will be examined next month, as the conclusion to this series on leather relationships.

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Event

 Steve Parent-Korbie was inspired as a child when he witnessed a disabled athlete carrying the Olympic Torch.

From Spectator to Torch Barer Steve Parent-Korbie Fulfills a Childhood Dream

By Dallas Barnes On Day 74 of the Olympic Torch Run, Steve Parent-Korbie carried the Olympic Torch through Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta with over 50 supporters cheering him on. According to Parent-Korbie nothing could replace that feeling.

“It was the most exhilarating experience once they light the torch and you hold it proudly above your head. I happen to be the first torchbearer for the Fort Saskatchewan leg, so my torch was lit using the lantern that was lit from the original flame in Greece. This made the experience even more special.”

Steve had been dreaming about this moment since 1988, as a 14 year-old afflicted with Cerebral Palsy, when he witnessed the Torch passing by, carried by no ordinary runner. “I saw a disabled torch relay runner wheel with the torch back in 1988 for the Calgary Olympics. After seeing only able bodied runners with the torch, it was actually really cool to see the runner in the wheelchair. In the back of my mind I told myself if there was every an opportunity to run with the Olympic torch I would try.” And try he did.

In the Spring of 2009, Steve nominated himself to be an official Olympic Torch Bearer in a Coca Cola promotion.

He answered the daily trivia contests, and waited for his chance. The cut-off date came and went, and Steve accepted the idea that he did not make it. All was not lost however as a week later he got an email stating he had made it through to round two. They now required an essay stating why he should carry the torch integrating it with topics from the previous trivia questions. He sent it in and waited, again not receiving any word back on cut-off day. On August 10, 2009, two days before his wedding to his now husband Randy in Niagara Falls; Coca Cola sent him an email. He was a potential Olympic Torchbearer. The only thing left to do was to fill out a consent form and send within a week.

Luckily, their marriage location was across from a Gift Shop with access to the internet. That night they had their wedding rehearsal, signed the forms, picked up their tuxedos and couriered off the forms. All Steve had to do now was enjoy his wedding and wait until January 2010.

Having a disability has not slowed him down. He is proud of being an openly gay man with Cerebral Palsy living life like

everyone else. The opportunity to carry the Olympic Torch only strengthens his advocacy for future generations.

“It is important to have this opportunity to allow the general public to become a part of the Olympic family and to allow the future generations to see that no matter how the odds are stacked up against you, with dedication and perseverance any dream you have can come true. There are always persons with disabilities carrying the torch. However it is a very small percentage of the overall torchbearers. For the 2010 Olympic Torch Relay, there are only 3% out of the 12,000 torchbearers that have a disability. So I feel very privileged to be a part of that group. It makes me feel very proud to see disabled people receiving a chance to show the world who they are. Being an openly gay disabled male, I have had to deal with the hardships that come along with not only being disabled, but the ones that come along with being gay. So seeing people in the minority community, gives me a sense of pride as we are just seen as member of society and just as important as the next person.“ Standing by his side is his husband of nearly one year, Randy. “I felt very proud of Steve as he went through this experience. I love his determination and outlook on both us as a couple and our future together. I love my little Torchbearer Dimples.”

Upon reflection of this past year’s journey, Steve has many people to acknowledge. “I would like to thank all of my friends and family, everyone at NAIT, my husband Randy, and the countless supporters that were with me on this journey. I would like to also thank Coca-Cola and VANOC for giving me this opportunity to become part of the 2010 Olympic family.”

And in the process, this 14 year-old with a dream has undoubtedly passed along a torch of another kind, to inspire many others.

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37

Event

Queeries

Valentine’s Advice, Groping & Closet Cases

By Steven Petrow

How to live with a closet case?

Q: I’m very comfortable with my sexuality, but my partner’s not out to his family or colleagues. It’s driving me crazy. How do we handle the tension?

A: I’m wondering whether you mean the tension between the two of you, one out and one closeted, or the tension you feel in the presence of your partner’s family, when you are being asked to lie about your relationship. They are probably somewhat entwined.

Your real issue is that your partner, for whatever reason, is not able to be honest with himself or his family. Perhaps it’s his fear of emotional rejection, the threat of financial or professional ruin, or concern that news of his homosexuality would be too much for his parents to accept. But the truth is that because he’s an adult with a partner, it’s time to develop a coming out plan. Life in the closet is difficult enough for the guy in the closet without spreading the burden around by asking others to lie (or cover up) for him.

You may want to suggest he contact PFLAG and/or find a therapist to discuss his coming out issues—and offer to support him through the process. In the end, of course, the decision to come out remains a personal one. Either your partner will or he won’t. And you will either stay with him or move on. If he does remain in the closet and you do stay together, by the way, you

may find it easier to limit your visits to his family so as to forego the pretense of being a “friend.”

Help for drunken groping?

Q: Not too long ago my girlfriend and I went to a posh dinner party hosted by my best friend Georgia, also a lesbian, who – truth be told – has a problem with alcohol. Late in the evening, flush with excitement (and wine), Georgia put her hand up my girlfriend’s skirt. GF made a big scene and insisted we leave.

We’re both furious, but what should we do?

A: Well, what are you furious about most? That your best friend can’t control her impulses? That she accosted your girlfriend publicly? What about that your girlfriend might think you didn’t stand up for her?

It’s easiest to wag your finger at Georgia: She violated your girlfriend’s body and your trust (and may well be an alcoholic). I’d suggest either calling or making a coffee date (not a drink date) and telling her how you feel about what happened that night. I also suggest doing a little asking and listening, however. While I can understand that you’re furious, it sounds like Georgia may need more help than you need retribution. And isn’t that what best friends are for?

As for your girlfriend, she has good reason to be mad at both you and Georgia. Why was it left to her to make the move to leave? I’m sorry to say, but that was really your job and you let her down. Take the initiative and say two of the most difficult words in the English language: “I’m sorry.”

Help for Valentine’s Day? Q: I have been going out with this new guy for about two weeks and lo and behold Valentine’s Day looms ahead. I’m kind of freaking out – and not sure what to do – if anything. Help!

A: What do you do for Valentine’s Day when you’ve only been dating for a short time? Many of my friends in the early stages of relationships have been vexed by this dilemma over the years. You don’t want to let the holiday slip by unnoticed (as if that were possible in this culture), but you don’t want to do “too much” in case that shows you’re more invested than your new flame. On the other hand, maybe you’re just having fun and sex and that’s your end game—and love’s got nothing to do with it.

First of all, stop the mind games. Ask yourself how you feel about your new beau. How would you like to express those sentiments? Then follow your intuition. Another option is to talk with him before the 14th and say something like, “I know we’ve only been dating for a little while, but do you think we should celebrate Valentine’s Day?” If you’re still not sure how to handle the big day, under-do it rather than over-do it. Buy or make a card and write something authentic, like: “I’m really glad we’re getting to know each other.” Or if you’re feeling that this is more of a sexual tryst, “You’re so hot!” When all else fails, there’s the stalwart: “Happy Valentine’s Day.” By the way, if you haven’t said, “I love you” in real life yet, don’t sign your card, “Love, John.” Other options are: “XO” (for hugs and kisses) or “Fondly,” or just your name if you can’t decide what suits your current emotional state.

Steven Petrow is the author of The Essential Book of Gay Manners & Etiquette. Find him on the web at www.gayandlesbianmanners.com

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GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine #76, February 2010

Sports

The OutField

Sweet turnaround for Peggy Beck

By Dan Woog Stereotypes have long held that there are no gay male athletes – but most female athletes are lesbians. However, ever since The Front Runner, authors have tackled the theme of gay male athletes far more often than females.

Sweet Turnaround J changes all that.

The second novel by Peggy Beck, it explores the life of 16-yearold Janey Holmes after her old school closes, and she joins a team that has not won a game in three years. Along the way she confronts her own temper, and falls in love with another girl.

Like Janey, Beck was a sports fanatic. Her father encouraged her love of athletics; her mother, concerned about raising a tomboy, was less enthusiastic. Growing up in Minnesota in the 1950s and ’60s, Beck played every game imaginable –including football. But as she grew older, social strictures made coed play impossible.

With no real sports available, she went through “bad emotional stuff,” Beck says. Recognizing her attraction to women made life even tougher. She gravitated to politics and folk singing. At Sarah Lawrence College, she wrote but did not show her work to anyone. “My whole life was secret,” she says.

After earning a Ph.D. in the history of consciousness, she wrote fiction, poetry, articles and essays covering mythology, folklore and history. In middle age she recalled that she once wanted to be the best female basketball player in the world and decided to revisit that dream.

“I wanted to write about a girl obsessed with basketball,” Beck says. “But I realized I didn’t know anything about it anymore.” She spent a year watching every practice of a team in New Mexico, where she lived. She went to the Amateur Athletic Union 15-year-old Nationals where she interviewed coaches.

She attended other tournaments, and then became an assistant high school coach and a seventh grade girls’ coach.

She studied videos, read coaching books and interviewed plenty of players. “I wanted to get it right,” Beck says.

She got it so right the first draft of her novel was 1,000 pages.

The lesbian element is important. Janey falls in love with her new best friend. The chapter where they kiss and make love is implied. Over the next two chapters, the reader agonizes as the girls can’t deal with what is going on. Janey goes through hell when Alejo won’t talk to her.

During her long research, Beck had watched girls trying to figure out their feelings for other girls. She’d also heard the anti-gay remarks so typical on teams and in high schools.

Because Beck had felt and heard the same things, her writing is strong and real.

But it did not become truly powerful until Beck changed the narrative from third person to first.

Sweet Turnaround J is not, however, only about lesbians.

“It always comes back to basketball,” Beck says. “The gym is like the theater – every day is a rehearsal for a play.” The novel includes alcohol abuse, parental issues, coaching issues – all the things teenagers of every sexual orientation deal with regularly.

But sexuality is often part of high school sports, and Beck does not shy from it. When Janey finally talks with a teammate, the other girl asks, “How did you know you were gay?”

“I always was,” Janey says.

The coach encourages Janey and Alejo to follow their feelings.

That doesn’t always happen, Beck knows, but through her research into coaches and coaching styles, she realizes that the best coaches are supportive of all their athletes, whatever their personal feelings may be.

Like many young adult novels, Sweet Turnaround J is making its way slowly into libraries and onto suggested reading lists.

Bloggers who discuss homophobia in women’s basketball have been positive and helpful.

One reviewer said that the author’s “depiction of relationships is often missing in the male sports books, which focus more on narrative action. Beck’s portrayal of a multicultural team with all the signifiers suggests an observant eye and much research…

(We) discover the important lessons and human strength that basketball or any sport can teach in the drive toward winning games and learning life’s lessons.”

“I live in a complete fantasy world, where everyone will want to read it,” Beck admits. While she has heard nothing negative so far, she understands that a gay protagonist may cause some young readers to steer clear.

Beck hopes that does not happen. “I’ll feel really badly if it gets pigeonholed. I think girls who aren’t lesbian can find a lot in the book to enjoy and learn from,” she says.

“There are no sports books for girls, gay or straight,” Beck says. “They’re the lowest of the low on the totem pole.

Hundreds of thousands of girls play sports. They need to read about their world.”

Visit www.sweetturnaroundj.com for more information, including ordering information and links to basketball websites.

It Took a Team Since its inception four years ago, The OutField has chronicled – and lauded – the work of It Takes a Team. We’ve covered the small organization’s large work in areas as diverse as anti-gay recruiting by college coaches, the preparation of an educational kit on LGBT issues in sport, and the rise of transgender athletes.

But this is our last column about It Takes a Team. In December, its sponsor – the Women’s Sports Foundation – announced the end of funding for the project. Budget woes in a soft economy doomed the decade-old program.

It Takes a Team began auspiciously. Concerned about homophobia in sport, tennis great Martina Navratilova raised funds to combat stereotypes and educate participants. Though what was then called The Project to Eliminate Homophobia in Sport became part of the Women’s Sports Foundation, Navratilova insisted it address male issues as well as female.

From the start, the Women’s Sports foundation had a hard time getting other LGBT or athletic organizations to support the project. Its first directors were paid very little and administrative aid from the WSF was minimal, limiting its impact and visibility.

A key moment occurred when Pat Griffin – a professor of social justice and former coach at the University of Massachusetts – joined with Mount Holyoke College athletic director Laurie Priest, former Massachusetts Department of Education Safe Schools Program director Jeff Perrotti and former Oberlin College athletic director Michael Muska to develop educational materials.

Continued 

GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine #76, February 2010

39

Community

 Sports - Cont’d

Get Your HEART On

Bad Romance Gives New Saturday Night Options

By Dallas Barnes Bad Romance is hoping to make your Valentine’s weekend a memorable one. On February 13th, make your way down

(or up for that matter) to the 35th Floor of the International Hotel Suites in downtown Calgary for Bad Romance Valentine’s Day Revelry.

This venue will hold up to 200 of Calgary’s elite “for an evening of heart-pounding, sexy beats, specialty drinks, models donned in Priape’s hottest new arrivals and breathtaking city views.” Sounds like it will be a fantastic evening, and a welcome to Calgary’s Gay Scene.

The 35th Floor will be decked out in luxurious décor exclusive to its patrons, offering a safe space for gays and their allies to celebrate Valentine’s Day how they wish. DJ Twinky J will be there to keep you dancing with his mix of gay anthems, while DJ Fleur Bromfield and her tambourine “will take to the stage and keep the party pumping with her high-spirited performance and sexy-funk house jams.”

Entrance to Bad Romance Valentine’s Day Revelry is only permitted to Bad Romance Members. An annual membership costs $20 and includes an exclusive pass to the Bad Romance Valentine’s Day Revelry. Visit the ClubZone website to join BRE, but of course you must be 18 years of age or older to attend.

“It is our aim to offer Calgary’s gay community more social events and parties, to be on par with the likes of Vancouver and Montreal,” says Matthew Tuer, CEO of BRE. “We are honored to provide our established culture the first of many marvelous, safe and intimate events.”

Tuer adds, “Two of my friends and I started Bad Romance Entertainment a few months ago in hopes that we can breathe some new life into the Calgary gay scene. We are hoping to bring the community closer together and put our city on par with places like Vancouver and Montreal. …This party is for gays and their friends, so therefore anyone who has a friendly and open attitude towards gays are more than welcome to come.

We would eventually like to blur the lines between straight and gay and make it so you don’t have to specify that a party or event is for one or the other, as some of the best parties I’ve been to around the world have been all encompassing. We feel that before gays can really get a voice here in Calgary, we need to give them some options on a Saturday night, and show that when we come together, we can accomplish anything we want to. Our community needs to work together and not against each other in order to make Calgary a more gay friendly place to live.

And in throwing this party and more like it in the near future, that’s exactly what we hope to accomplish. “ It sounds like Tuer and Bad Romance Entertainment is on the right track. If you are looking for something different and refreshing, make sure to check out Bad Romance Valentine’s Day Revelry.

Bad Romance Valentine’s Day Revelry February 13th 35th Floor, International Hotel Suites 220 4th Avenue SW, Calgary www.badromance-entertainment.com

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The result: a 15-minute video, curriculum materials and action guides, “Safe Space” stickers, posters, and a list of resources addressing LGBT issues in sport – provided help to athletes, coaches and administrators. It came at a crucial time, when student-athletes began coming out of the closet and a new generation of coaches moved into positions of power.

In 2004, director Lisa Thompson left It Takes a Team.

Griffin – who had just retired from UMass – was hired at a higher salary. She worked from her home in Massachusetts, but was given administrative assistance at WSF’s Long Island headquarters. In 2005, the program’s name was changed to It Takes a Team.

Griffin took her job seriously. She traveled widely, speaking to athletes, coaches and administrators, and at PFLAG and athletic conferences. She developed strong relationships with the National Collegiate Athletic Association and National Center for Lesbian Rights.

Eighteen national advocacy organizations – from the Association for Applied Sport Psychology and Anti-Defamation League to OutSports .com and the Transgender Law Center – endorsed It Takes a Team and linked to its Web site.

A monthly e-newsletter reached over 3,000 subscribers. Griffin answered countless questions, and offered advice on ways to make sports teams safe and welcoming for LGBT athletes.

“Coaches and administrators really relied on us,” Griffin says.

“They knew to come to us with questions like ‘What’s a fair transgender policy?’ or ‘How do I address negative recruiting by coaches in our conference?’ We came a long way.”

The organization had its most success at the college level, perhaps because of the older age of participants. “There’s much more work to be done in high school,” Griffin notes.

Her greatest satisfaction came from advising studentathletes about their legal rights, then following up to hear that progress was made. She was especially heartened when parents supported their LGBT sons and daughters.

For five years, It Takes a Team raised money through grants and donations. In 2009, as funds dried up for non-profits across the country, the WSF decided to end the program.

The wealth of resources will remain on the WSF’s Web site (www.womenssportsfoundation.org/Issues-And-Research/ Homophobia.aspx). However, there will be no more research, conferences or educational materials.

Griffin vows to continue her own work – including her blog (www.ittakesateam.blogspot.com). “I’m not done,” she says firmly.

“I have such a passion for this. I’m looking for my next venue, figuring out how to keep going. I want to stay in the game.”

She adds: “My goal was always to put myself out of business.

It hasn’t happened yet. I hear too many stories and get too many calls about negative recruiting, anti-gay locker room environments and comments made by coaches and athletes.

“Our work is not done. We’ve got a foothold in the world of sport. I’m sad to see It Takes a Team end now.”

Griffin is heartened that her group was alone in working on LGBT issues in sport. The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation has a sports media desk. NCLR, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, the student-led Our Group, OutSports.com and individuals on campus around the country “won’t go away,” Griffin says. “We’re no longer a lonely voice in the wilderness. We’ve got lots of company now.”

Dan Woog is a journalist, educator, soccer coach, gay activist, and author of the “Jocks” series of books on gay male athletes. Visit his Web site at www.danwoog.com. He can be reached care of this publication

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GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine #75, January 2010

Support Profile of the Abuser and the Victim

The Forgotten Male Victims of Spousal Abuse

By Evan Kayne Traditionally, most domestic abuse victim support services operated under the assumption of abuser = male, victim = female. Unfortunately, this leaves the LGBT community out in the cold – especially when both halves of the couple are male. What has changed recently is the awareness that men can be victims of domestic violence. Note that this is not to downplay concerns of female victims and/or abusers in a female/female domestic abuse situation – this article is just to highlight the support for men who have suffered abuse.

Abuse impacts people regardless of sexuality, yet while heterosexual male-on-female abuse is well documented and researched, for the LGBT community, there are few statistics. According to local registered psychologist Jane Oxenbury (M.Ed., C.Psych.), “the problem is that there isn’t a lot of research out there, and the research…is only as good as it is designed”. The pitfall of survey design regarding this topic is that the respondents are in a closet with doublethick doors - not only does the person have to admit he was in an abusive relationship (or an abuser), but also “out” himself.

Jane adds that a standard statistic for gay and lesbian domestic abuse that has been used for many years is an average of all the research that is known to exist, which comes to 25-33% of all relationships.

Some numbers even suggest domestic abuse may be higher in a male-male partnership. Jane is not sure if that is correct either: “there’s a lot of myths that go along with women using violence against other women.”

Furthermore, while some research shows men in MM relationships may be more prone to physical violence and women in FF relationships prone to verbal and psychological abuse, there are many instances where the two trends are reversed.

For the average citizen, their concept of an abuser usually runs to someone with a prior history of abuse, perhaps in their family; this is only partially true. It’s possible than an abuser can learn this behaviour from someone else later in life, or simply develop it in the presence of their current partner with no such history. Ultimately, the abuser learns this power works in their favour to control their partner, and becomes a habit. Nevertheless, “you make a choice to be abusive,” Jane says.

Another common factor amongst abusers is low selfesteem. Jane explained that “as much as they may be doctors, or lawyers or high-powered people or people with a lot of money…they don’t feel very good. They don’t feel good enough.”

Other common traits of an abuser include (but are not limited to): • Easily insulted; • Inability to manage his/her own emotions (suppression and then explosion); • A gentle disposition one minute, a violent disposition the next (i.e. Jekyll and Hyde personality); Domestic abuse in a relationship doesn’t happen overnight; there are subtle steps. Abusers may resort to behaviours such as: • Threatening to “out” their victim to family, friends or work; • Controlling all finances and threatening to destroy their victim’s possessions; • Threatening to “out” their victim’s HIV status or to infect them; • Blaming the victim for his/her abusive behaviour; • Accusing the victim of adultery; • Controlling who the victim sees or talks to and where the victim goes; • Threatening to harm the victim and others, or to commit suicide if the victim leaves; and • Using a level of force in sex beyond what the partner may find acceptable (this INCLUDES couples who are into BDSM).

Just as an abuser has no set profile, a victim could come from any background – they can come from a family with a history of abuse or from a loving, supportive family background. Often victims make excuses for their abusers because of the honeymoon periods consisting of normal, happy, everyday life - the abuse only happens rarely.

Unfortunately, over time the honeymoon periods shorten until eventually one abusive incident leads directly into the next. By then, the victim has difficulty seeing the whole pattern objectively.

Resources for Male Victims of Domestic Abuse Jonathan McGregor (M.Sc.), a councillor at the Calgary Counselling Centre, hopes to let men know they are not on their own anymore thanks to their Male Domestic Abuse Outreach Program (MDAOP).

“The program [exists] to raise awareness in men experiencing domestic abuse, and also to serve them,” says Jon, who does both public advocacy and promotion of the service.

Additionally, he holds individual counselling and if possible (if the aggressor and the victim first have attended individual sessions and the abuse has been stopped) he will counsel couples. As part of the program, they also have a support group for victims: Turn for the Better: For Men

GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine #76, February 2010

43

 Support - Cont’d Who Are Victims of Violence. The MDAOP serves Calgary, Strathmore, and surrounding rural areas.

Such a program supporting male victims is very unique.

“The main issue we are confronting here is that men don’t know there are services available, or that there are too few services,” Jon told us.

Another issue is victims fear that they won’t be believed.

“We’ve spoken with men who have had really bad experiences coming forward with their victimization or abuse.” Service providers such as police, social workers, and lawyers tend to pull back in disbelief - it’s an experience similar to what women faced 30-40 years ago. It’s easy to see how social norms applying to men cause male victims of domestic abuse to suffer in silence.

Or suffer silently in shame, according to Jon: “Men’s identity is tied to their masculinity, and when there’s an experience they are going through that counters this general stereotype of what is a ‘real’ man, it calls into question that type of masculinity (their identity) and I think that’s where the shame comes in.”

Part of the counselling process is to label those behaviours as stereotypes coming from outside (society) and inside (experience); once you do that, it gives men a chance to redefine their masculinity and heal.

The program has its successes, “but we won’t claim 100%”.

Calgary Counselling Centre will do a partner check with the victim in couples that have remained together through the process. This is so they can see how the victim is doing, how the former abuser is progressing, offer any suggestions, and ensure the victim is not being further abused. Most victims give Jon lots of positive feedback. “I think just the fact that the client is in treatment gives the victim some hope that they are least trying to work on this thing, making some differences,” he added.

Expanding services to help male victims is very important in breaking the cycle of violence. Occasionally same sex couples can see abusers and victims flip roles.

“People can flip from being a victim to being an abuser in the next relationship or being an abuser to being a victim,” Jane Oxenbury notes. A man who was once a victim can become overly defensive around a less dominant partner; and conversely, a man realizing his last relationship brought out abusive qualities in him, may try to be overly accommodating in the next and thus set himself up to become a victim.

Jane works with victims of domestic abuse as part of her regular work as a counsellor, but it was the lack of support for men in same sex relationships in Calgary which prompted her to publicize her strengths in this area through her VIGOR program, short for Violence in Gay Male Relationships, where the O is substituted for the male symbol.

Both VIGOR and MDAOP contrasts many other Calgary support agencies which are set up on the assumption of primarily female victims, with only a nod to male support groups (for former abusers).

As for Edmonton, they come up about the same for the level of support to what Calgary has. The City of Edmonton offers individual counselling along with several men’s support groups, including “From Chaos to Peace” – an eight week education support group for men who have experienced partner abuse. Additionally, the Pride Centre of Edmonton has counsellors volunteer their time Wednesday evenings at the Centre. In addition, Men’s Alternative Temporary Housing and Supports (MATHS) has sheltered male victims when they have needed refuge. Unfortunately, 44

GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine #76, February 2010

a victim may feel a bit out of place here, as MATHS usually provides temporary emergency housing to men who have been abusive in their intimate partner relationship.

We should consider this a good start anyhow; organisations are starting to realize they need to help male victims too.

Beside MATHS, the Wheatland Shelter in Strathmore is the only shelter in the Calgary area which also accepts men.

Meanwhile, Police services in Edmonton and Calgary have made changes in addressing domestic abuse with peace officers being trained to be more observant and sensitive to the fact that men can experience abuse too.

Can Family and Friends Help Victims of Abuse?

When family and friends do observe abuse affecting a loved one, it’s important they not pressure the victim into making rash changes or leaving - the victim is doing what they know they need to do to keep the violence from escalating. Family and friends should educate themselves about domestic abuse, find out what support services are available. They can help by aiding the victim to realize the behaviour is abusive, however, the decision on how to proceed has to come from the victim. Above all, the victim needs to know that you can be counted on for support.

It should also be made clear to the victim that physical abuse crosses the line to assault, which is illegal regardless of their relationship to the abuser – and therefore the police can be contacted if and when the situation gets out of hand.

Domestic Abuse is a big topic to cover, and unfortunately to keep this article somewhat short we couldn’t cover areas such as making a safety plan for leaving your abuser, what to do in the event of sexual assault and, as mentioned at the start, female/female domestic abuse concerns. We chose to focus on a group that is underserved (male victims); however large parts of the information above – and certainly the web links below – does discuss domestic abuse issues which are relevant no matter what the sex of the victim or the abuser.

If you or someone you know is a victim of domestic abuse, Gay Calgary and Edmonton Magazine encourages you to seek out the help and resources you need. Love is not about control, insults or bruises.

Men’s Domestic Abuse Resources

In Calgary: www.calgarycounselling.com www.vigorcalgary.ca www.wheatland.albertashelters.com In Edmonton: www.edmonton.ca/for_residents/resident_services_programs/ mens-support-services.aspx www.pridecentreofedmonton.org http://www.edmontonpolice.ca/VictimSupport/WhatIsAbuse/SpousalViolence.aspx LGBT Domestic Abuse - Town Hall Meeting March 25th • Eau Claire More details to follow in March Edition. http://www.gaycalgary.com/a1576

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Sports

Team Edmonton Mixer LGBT Dodgeball Sport and Socializing Promises to be Sensational New Sport Enters Western Cup

By Dallas Barnes

By Sam Casselman

Come out and meet the organizers and participants from the various GLBT sports and recreation groups in Edmonton, as Team Edmonton is puts on their annual Mixer on February 27th. The much anticipated event is happening at the Art Gallery and Creations Lounge at the Sawridge Inn.

In recent years, Dodgeball has made quite a comeback.

The Western Cup has caught onto this spirit and for the first time, is offering a place for it in the Western Cup tournament!

Keith Andony, Team Edmonton organizer, is very excited about this event; all 28 of Edmonton’s LGBTQ sports and recreation groups have been invited. Team Edmonton also partners with local community groups such as HIV Edmonton, Edmonton Queer Professionals, Womonspace, and Calgary based groups like AARGA and Apollo, some of whom will also be present at the event.

Not only is the Team Edmonton Mixer promising to be a night of fun and entertainment, it will also give people an idea of the over 28 different activities that Edmonton sporting group provides.

Athletes that will be attending the Western Cup on April 1-3 are strongly encouraged to come as well. Andony says, “If there are any Edmonton athletes who would like to participate in Western Cup, they can register with Apollo that evening.

The sports planned include Badminton, Bowling, Curling, Hockey, Running, Swimming, and Volleyball.”

When asked about Team Edmonton’s role in its LGBT community he responded, “Team Edmonton became an official society in 2007 and keeps as its main goal, the promotion of GLBT sports and recreation in the city. We operate a website at www.teamedmontion.ca that keeps the community informed and up-to-date on the latest activities in the city and send out a monthly newsletter to members. We also work to promote Edmonton’s participation in national and international GLBT sporting events. Memberships are available at the Annual Mixer and Silent Auction Celebration on the Square (Pride Week) and the Annual General Meeting.”

Admission to the event is a free, however you must be 18 or older to attend as it is a licensed liquor establishment. There will be a silent auction, the funds from which Andony explains go directly to Team Edmonton to continue supporting their affiliated groups and make it possible for new initiatives.

Team Edmonton would like to thank all of its volunteers and sponsor that assisted in helping this event to happen. Out of down guests attending the event receive a special Team Edmonton Rate of $99 per night if they decide to stay.

“This year is the first year that dodge ball will be offered as a sport, we are really excited and hope that it takes off.

We would love to turn this into a regular weekly schedule,” says Amber Reid, Dodgeball coordinator.

The Dodgeball Tournament is being held at Hillhurst Community Centre on Saturday April 3rd from 10am until 5pm, and anybody 18 or older can play. Reid asserts that the average age of participants ranges from 20-35 with an equal helping of men and women. She would love to get more people of all ages to join. “Dodge ball is a really fun and easy - it’s also very addictive - sport to play, any age or gender too. Even if you have never played, just sign up with a team and play for fun. That is the most important part!”

The equipment is provided, so all you need to bring is a pair of running shoes.

However, knee pads are recommended.

Registering for Dodge ball at the Western Cup costs only $30.00 before March 1st and $55.00 afterwards. Registration closes on March 15th.

There will be two divisions paying, one consisting of experienced teams and the other of new/beginner teams. When registering a team there is a minimum of 6 players and a maximum of 8. These players must be registered with Western Cup. If you are unfamiliar with the rules of Dodge ball, not to worry: the rules are listed extensively on the Western Cup website.

Apollo Friends in Sports is continuing to create some excellent, all-inclusive sporting initiatives, so give Dodgeball a try at this year’s Western Cup.

Team Edmonton Mixer February 27th, 7pm-11pm Creations Lounge at the Sawridge Hotel 4235 Gateway Blvd, Edmonton 1-888-729-7343

Western Cup Dodgeball April 3rd, 10am-5pm Hillhurst-Sunnyside Community Centre http://www.westerncup.com

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45

Music

Music Review

Unbroken, Animal, Stronger with Every Tear

By Chris Azzopardi

Animal Unbroken

By: Katharine McPhee Genre: Rock My Rating:  Now a blonde, you wouldn’t recognize the former Idol frontrunner on the cover of her second album. That’s probably the point. After an awful, R&B-leaned 2007 debut bombed and struggled to artistically define the singer-turned-actress (causing her then-label RCA Records to drop her), the former broad’s going the Mandy Moore route – right down adultcontemporary road. Songs like the first couple pop confections – mid-tempos “It’s Not Right” and “Had It All,” the irresistible first single – fit McPhee better than the shoes she ridiculously sang about on her predecessor, partly because the focus wisely shifts to her fine, cloudless voice. It’s an alluring instrument that works marvelously on “Say Goodbye,” a piano-led lament vulnerably conveyed in a haunting cadence. Unfortunately, it’s often also stylistically vanilla – and a heap of bland ballads rounding out the album aren’t particularly wooing. But at least she’s moving her Manolos in the right direction.

By: Ke$ha Genre: Rock My Rating:  Pop’s new “bi” on the block is the kid Katy Perry would have if she could birth a 22-year-old smart ass. Her stock elocution is an almost-clone of the “I Kissed a Girl” phony’s.

But Ke$ha likes booze more – or so she sings (and sometimes raps) in her teen-sounding tone. The no-BS-taking brat is hammered on much of her drunk-on-dance debut, sneaking alcohol into her purse, guzzling it like water or using it as a metaphor. Oftentimes she unleashes some snarky, cackle-causing zinger. All this is sloshed over electro-pop beats via music-making majors like Dr. Luke and Max Martin, who manipulate Ke$ha’s Katy-meets-Miley vocals to crazy robotic, half-Chipmunk effect. Much of Animal is cut from the same blippity-blooping that assaults the first single, “TiK ToK,” with the opening lead-in of songs offering irresponsible fun – especially on the fuzzed-out “Take It Off,” promoting drunken hot messes. But as if to make her seem like a real person, she turns to insufferable ballads that aren’t believable when she’s channeling more machismo than a frat boy. There’s still instant gratification to some of this disposable, processed party-pop, but it’s on par with a night of nonstop drinking. You won’t remember much of it tomorrow.

Stronger with Every Tear

By: Mary J. Blige Genre: R&B My Rating:  ½

If ever an artist could sell a cliché, it’d be Mary J. Blige.

So much raw conviction is served alongside her inimitable powerhouse voice that even self-empowerment platitudes, like those on the canned MJB upper-anthem “Each Tear” off her ninth studio album, go down easier than they should.

But even a bona fide soul queen like Blige can’t redeem something as abominable as “Kitchen,” cooking up atrocious rhymes and silly appliance metaphors like a parody. Meat’s missing in the hallow shells of “I Love U (Yes I Du)” and “I Feel Good,” and a few cookie-cutter club songs – produced by trendy hip-hop hot shots – dilute Blige’s trademark stamp, but still do their job. She gets into her groove on “I Am” with its classic-ballad throwback vibe. But it’s the prized closing paean, “I Can See in Color” – a sparse, bluesy song of joy, redemption and self-love – that makes bold boasts like “I’m the best” more believable.

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GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine #76, February 2010

Sports

Alberta Bowling

The Rainbow Riders & Northern Titans

By Sam Casselman

Calgary’s Rainbow Riders “Bowling is a fun and social sport with just a little competition on the side,” says Brad, organizer for the Rainbow Riders bowling league in Calgary.

Bowling is a sport that can be enjoyed by a wide range of people as it is one that relies more on accuracy than stamina or brute force. “We pride ourselves on participation and successfully cater to everyone who wants to bowl: young or old, beginner or dedicated, fun-seeker or competitive, and this year promises to be even more successful.”

Last season Apollo Bowling celebrated their 22nd anniversary and had 24 teams of 4 bowlers, made up of roughly 40% women and 60% men. “There is a good split between male and female bowlers of all ages.”

According to Brad, a quarter of the league each year is made up of first time bowlers, and Brad encourages, “don’t be shy, come out and join us every Wednesday this season!”

Apollo bowling takes place at Lets Bowl every Wednesday at 7pm. The cost is $17.00 per night, which includes Lineage, and a contribution to the prize fund. Shoe rentals cost a mere $2.50.

“Bowling is one of the original sports that take part in Western Cup each year,” Brad explains. The Western Cup Bowling tournament is coming up soon, running from April 2nd to 3rd. The Tournament is a mixed handicap competition open to men and women made up of events for singles, doubles and teams. Competitors can choose

LGBT Bowling Leagues in Alberta Rainbow Riders (Calgary) Lets Bowl (2916 5th Avenue NE) Wednesdays, 7pm Running until March 3rd $17.00 per night. Shoe rentals: $2.50 bowling@apollocalgary.com

Unity Bowling (Calgary) Lets Bowl (2916 5th Avenue NE) Sundays at 1:30pm

Northern Titans (Edmonton) Gateway Lanes (100, 3414 Gateway Blvd) Saturdays, 5-7pm $15.00 per night. bowling@teamedmonton.ca to participate in all three events and score based on their overall performance – in which case they bowl three games per event. Teams consist of four members comprised of any combination of men and women, all of whom compete on an equal basis. Participants are made up mostly of the Rainbow Riders, and also Calgary’s newer Unity Bowling league.

If the fun along isn’t enough to motivate you, there is an estimated $12,500 in prize money up for grabs, among many other prizes.

Brad estimates that every bowler on every team will win back almost half of the money they have contributed to the Prize Fund as part of their nightly fee. During the weekly “Bowling for Bucks” game, everyone has a chance at a cash prize of $150: buy a raffle ticket for a dollar, if your ticket is drawn and you bowl a strike, you are an instant winner. If you don’t bowl a strike you still win $10 for every pin knocked down, and the strike pot grows weekly until it is won. Also for just a loonie, you could win the weekly 50/50 pot that averages $100.

Edmonton’s Northern Titans Team Edmonton’s Northern Titans GLBT Bowling league meets every Saturday evening from 5 to 7pm at the Gateway Lanes.

Nightly admission is $15.00.

Unfortunately we were unable to speak to a representative of the Northern Titans league before time of press, however the upcoming Team Edmonton mixer is an excellent opportunity to find out what Northern Titans, and other Team Edmonton leagues are about.

The mixer will be held on February 27 in the art gallery and Creations Lounge at the Sawridge Inn in Edmonton. Guests receive a special Team Edmonton Rate of $99 per night at the hotel if they would like to stay. Admission to this event is free, however you must be over 18 to attend.

Apollo Friends in Sports

www.apollocalgary.com Team Edmonton www.teamedmonton.ca Western Cup Bowling Tournament Lets Bowl (2916 5th Avenue NE) Friday April 2nd, 2010 Singles 9am-12pm, Doubles 1pm–4pm.

Saturday April 3rd Teams from 12pm–4:30pm www.westerncup.com http://www.gaycalgary.com/a1580

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49

Interview

Wanna Dance?

GMMF brings the Funk to Calgary

By Pam Rocker If you’re looking to get your groove on, look no further than God Made Me Funky. This 9-member ensemble has been called Toronto’s most danceable band and their mix of old school hiphop with funk, rap, rock, and R&B come together to produce the band’s “Nu-Funk” genre.

GMMF’s drummer, Alan Fitz, explains what Nu-Funk means to them. “Nu-Funk to us is an amalgamation; in the 1970’s, funk was all about the party, and we definitely bring the party part of it. The ‘Nu’ part of it is that we add rap, rock, hip-hop. We’re a funk band that plays with the attitude of a rock band; bringing back the fun of bands like Earth, Wind and Fire, and Kool and the Gang. In the late 70’s, it’s what people used to dance to and was linked closely to disco. Musicians didn’t take themselves too seriously, and that’s what we try to do. We’re all about putting on a big show and making it lots of fun.”

Fitz has been with GMMF since their formation in 1996, but long before then, he found himself behind a drum kit. When asked what prompted him to pick up sticks at the age of 11, he laughs and says that his mother was a big influence. “My mother decided for me because she wanted us to be musicians.

It was either my sister or I, and my sister showed neither the inclination or the aptitude for the guitar, so I thought I’d pick up the drums.” His Mom might have some problems with how well it’s worked out, though. “She may want me to give it up so that I would get married and give her some grandkids,” Fitz laughs.

Having 9 people in the band from so many different musical backgrounds could presumably cause some tension when it comes to collective decision-making. But, Fitz says, they meld together really well and there’s always room for anyone to try new things. “The great thing about this band is that we play a lot of shows, and often times someone on stage will come up with something, and if the audience is enjoying it, the next thing you know it becomes part of how we do that song. In a lot of ways, the audience decides on different changes we make. We love playing live. We’re privileged to be able to play 100 shows a year and never take it for granted.”

As evidenced on their latest album, “Welcome To Nu Funktonia”, GMMF doesn’t shy away from collaboration with other artists.

Nu Funktonia features guest vocals from Jully Black, Instant Star’s Miku Graham, Moka Only and production by Keith Harris from the Black Eyed Peas. They are also looking to work with a great old school hip-hop MC and producer, KRS-One, on their upcoming album. “We all grew up listening to him - he really was a pioneer of hip-hop music and culture.”

Ninety percent of the musical artists in the Toronto R&B scene have been in the band either as an artist or as a member at some point. Fitz feels like, for the most part, other Canadian artists are eager to team up with and support each other. “A lot of people seem willing to collaborate. Sometimes there’s an elitism – some people say they’re only a jazz musician or a rock musician and they won’t play any other style, but we think that new music comes from an amalgamation of old music. We always want to try new things. Like, what would happen if we took a polka artist and had him play with a funk band at 130 beats per minute?”

GMMF newest member is Season 3 Canadian Idol winner Melissa O’Neil, who we interviewed in last month’s edition. She joined the band as a vocalist but has added much more than her voice talent to the ensemble, says Fitz. “Melissa is a real contributor as a singer and as a writer, (in the past, the lead female vocalists we’ve had were mainly vocalists). When she joined, we all felt like we’d known her forever. She’s kind of like the band mother; she’s always caring about your life, asking how you’re doing. And she has a lot of ideas, she’ll say, I know that’s

how it’s usually been done, but let’s try it this way. Plus she’s done a little to help dress some of the band – who shall remain nameless.”

Calgary is also the hometown of O’Neil, so their upcoming performance will be even more special. “Our first time here was for the Juno’s in 2008,” says Fitz, “and we’re really excited to come back to Calgary.”

Fitz guarantees that they will bring nothing but a high-energy, feel-good show that will get you moving. “If you don’t dance, you’ll be the only one.”

God Made Me Funky Playing February 18th Dicken’s Pub (1000 9th Ave SW) info@dickenspub.ca 403.233.7550 http://www.gaycalgary.com/a1582

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51

Movies

Movie Review

St. Trinian’s and She’ll Cut a Bitch

By Chris Azzopardi

By Jason Clevett

As a brainless British farce gung-ho on spreading grrrl-power, St. Trinian’s asks a lot of you just to see Rupert Everett in drag. Patience, to ride out the whole tedious affair. A simple sense of humor, to find the laughs in cheap fart and dog-humping jokes.

And a strong stomach, to endure reputable actors in regrettable roles: Colin Firth, brilliant in A Single Man and uncomfortable to watch here, and Everett, pulling double-duty as the unruly school’s headmistress and its new student’s father.

Like the infamous 1954 film on which it’s based, The Belles of St. Trinian’s, the crux concerns a group of heinous girls hell-bent on saving their school from shutting down, doing it with true Trinian trickery – swiping a famous painting and selling it on the black market. Oh, how cunning. Too bad the witless flick isn’t even remotely as sharp as their scheme.

The laughs sag, characters flat-line and the slapdash script should’ve gone down with the school.

Firth, as the man bringing the institution down and Everett’s former love interest, is one-note – a respectable, even great, actor who shows considerable depth as a gay man in A Single Man, but can’t do much with this ditzy dreck. One scene has him investigating the bug-swarmed school, looking disgusted. That look probably says more about his undignified part in this film than the bit itself.

Brit comic Russell Brand, as the schoolgirl’s tool, can’t act, but the MTV tween audience he’ll attract here won’t care. Only Everett, as he completely camps up the part, is amusing as Ms. Fritton – engaging in a goofy fight, smoking a blunt and looking like he’s having a helluva time doing it all. “Don’t you think I make a remarkable queen?” he asks. In old-woman garb, Everett does, but the role’s still rather unremarkable (drag in a British film, how original) – and seeing him star in it feels like a waste. The talented, endearing and very out Englishman, having mostly ditched meaty parts in recent years, deserves better than the broad strokes of St. Trinian’s.

And even with Oliver Parker (The Importance of Being Earnest) in the director’s chair, the flick feels amateurish with its very slick music-video sensibility and desperate attempts at eliciting laughs: holy crap, that’s a man in a dress! Farting! How funny! The last half especially drags when the school’s bimbos compete during a trivia showdown while the brainiacs try to steal the Vermeer piece; it’s all very Spy Kids-meets-Mean Girls without any of the smarts, sass or heart of the gay-loved latter. The worst part, though, is this: There’s a sequel.

“Where are my gays at?” comic Kathy Griffin calls out to the Portland audience that was selected to tape her sixth Bravo special She’ll Cut A Bitch, now available uncensored on DVD. She certainly knows her audience. The Dlister early in the show talks about spending her birthday with Cher. “I am the only comic who can’t do a Cher impression” and it’s true. Her impression is terrible, but that is part of what is funny. However, her impression of Rosie O’Donnell is dead on.

Her comedy is based on personal stories such as meeting James Gandolfini at the Schmemmys, being at the Grammys, and sitting with Tracy Morgan trying not to lose it while he makes fun of Oprah within earshot. Talking about her mom Maggie is some of the best comedic material on the disc.

Fans of Griffin will enjoy the DVD. So maybe there weren’t any moments where I had to put it on because I was laughing so hard, but there were still a lot of extremely funny moments. Some of the material is dated – it aired on Bravo in April so targets like OctoMom and Sarah Palin aren’t as fresh as they were at the time. Overall, She’ll Cut A Bitch is an enjoyable watch.

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Arts

Truth Equals Beauty Rodeos and the Olympics, Paul Wong Style

By Pam Rocker Paul Wong’s award-winning career as a multi-media artist spans over three decades. The native Vancouverite is best known for being a self-invented video pioneer, but my favourite pick of his many titles is “organizer of public interventions.” He embraces and engages, sometimes roughly, with issues of sex, censorship, race, and death. Wielding his weapons of video, photography, and performance, he has deftly broached subjects that many would run from, and as a result, many of his oncecontroversial works are now considered classics.

Currently on exhibit at the Glenbow Museum is Wong’s installation: 2 Hot 2 Handle. Wong was invited to work directly  Photo Caption Text  Photo Caption Text with Glenbow’s diverse collections and to create new work based on his exploration. 2 Hot 2 Handle was inspired by the Glenbow’s extensive collection of western bronze sculptures.

Meshing the old with the new, Wong fuses the sculptures with images from the Alberta Rockies Gay Rodeo Association’s (ARGRA’s) Canadian Rockies International Rodeo in 2009.

Set within Glenbow’s permanent exhibition: Mavericks: An Incorrigible History of Alberta, Wong delves into this unconventional part of Alberta’s history, while grappling with the complexities of gender, masculinity and community.

“While looking at Mavericks, it was when I saw the rainbow flag in the grasslands that it really came alive for me,” says Wong. “There is, was, and always will be a queer history in Alberta’s cowboy culture.”

Wong found himself equally inspired by his first excursion to a rodeo, when he visited Canada’s largest gay rodeo in Strathmore last summer. He went with just his “happy snap” camera, not really knowing what to expect. “The people were so open and warm, they let me take their pictures with no questions asked. I felt a real sense of community and was very moved by the love I saw there. I really wanted to make those bronzes come alive with the heroes and heroines, the men and women of the gay rodeo circuit.”

Recently, Wong has begun taking some of his old video footage that’s never been shown and putting it out into the world. When visiting the Glenbow last month for a viewing of some of his recent video work, he screened a short film called Perfect Day. This self-portrait of Wong indulging in a variety of drugs by himself in his bedroom, straddles the line between humour and despair. While high, Wong searches desperately for a recording of the song Perfect Day by Lou Reed. He succeeds, but the CD is scratched, and the song skips, sending Wong into a bitter revolt, then on a journey to the bathroom to clean the CD with copious amounts of Windex.

“I was really nervous watching that,” says Wong, moments after the film is over. “It’s funny in parts, I know, but a certain part of me is horrified by it. But that’s the beauty of recording things and just putting them out there. When I looked back at this, I knew that I had edited it the morning after, when I was still high. But I didn’t change anything. If you start changing things, where do you stop? It’s real life, it was true at that moment.”

 “2 Hot 2 Handle” by Paul Wong, at the Glenbow Museum

Truth seems to be a cornerstone in Wong’s practice as an artist, even though he is consistently unpredictable and never seems to stop growing and changing. “When I first picked up a video camera it was my way to look at the world, record it, edit it, and put it back out there. But now it’s more about seeing things. The world is big, and luckily, I have an insatiable appetite. I’m excited about the world, I like seeing things that make me mad, make me excited, make me love.”

His goal is to keep putting his work out there, and he encourages his fellow artists to do the same. “There can be a lot of self-doubt when you’re doing stuff that’s not mainstream, that’s not traditional film, or that’s not beautiful to watch. But you can’t just keep holding on to your work, you have to be truthful. For me, truth equals beauty, just like silence equals death.”

It’s clear that Wong will not keep silent, as he continues to stay up to ten projects ahead of even himself. Vancouver is the site for his latest project: 5. Five site-specific events happening on five Saturdays during the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. Drawing together 79 artists from 22 countries, 5 will take the public on five extraordinary journeys through real, invented and imagined places. If you can’t make it there in person, each event can be experienced virtually, beginning February 13th.

In the meantime, you can still catch 2 Hot 2 Handle at the Glenbow Museum until February 21st.

Paul Wong www.5.paulwongprojects.com Glenbow Museum 152 58th Avenue SW • 403-258-2777 http://www.gaycalgary.com/a1584

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53

Interview

God-Des and She An Interview with Lesbian Legends

By Sam Casselman and Leah Kelley Remember that catchy song Lick it performed on the Season Three finale of The L-Word before Shane and Carmen’s wedding?

Let us introduce you to the musical duo responsible for its witty lyrics and funky beat; the talented God-Des and She. After ten years of performing together God-Des and She have recently debuted their third album- Three, the title inspired by the many three’s they encountered during the recording of the album, and in other aspects of their lives. Three is a mix of God-Des’s rhymes and She’s melodic voice in a genre labelled (by God-Des herself) as “UrbPop.” GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine had an exclusive opportunity to speak with this down to earth and friendly duo, one at a time.

God-Des: I’m really ignorant about Canada. I’ve been to Toronto and Vancouver, so where is Calgary in terms of location of the country?

GayCalgary: We’re right above Montana.

God-Des: Aw, shit, god it’s gotta be so beautiful there, I definitely want to come.

GayCalgary: Yeah, it’s super nice. So are you guys still based out of New York?

God-Des: No, we actually live in Austin, Texas now. I actually moved to Austin from New York in May and She just moved down here about a month and a half ago. This is going to be our home base. We were kind of getting tired of the fast paced super

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GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine #76, February 2010

expensive life. We wanted some sunshine, some more laid back environment and were also going to put together a live band here and start giggin, bi-weekly, or monthly around town, so that was another reason we kind of wanted to make the move.

GayCalgary: They say Alberta is like Texas. We’re supposedly very cowboy and “redneck” up here. What do you think?

God-Des: (Laughs) Austin is pretty cool ‘cause it’s extra liberal and progressive. The rest of Texas is pretty conservative, but it’s funny ‘cause Madison Wisconsin, where I went to college, is really like a hippy, super artistic liberal town in the mid-west, then there’s like a lot of farmers. Here it’s like a bunch of artists and hipsters and hippies and cowboys, it’s a real cool mix. I kind of say there’s a lot of alternative cowboys walking around Austin. They still rock the cowboy hats and Lee jeans, but they’re super progressive and artistic, it’s pretty cool.

GayCalgary: So when did you guys start making music?

God-Des: My entire family literally are professional classical musicians. My mom is a cellist and my dad is a trombonist. I started playing cello when I was three, I switched to violin at seven and then I switched to percussion at ten, which is the instrument I really like to play. I really love the drums and I started in band in fifth grade, playing all the different percussion instruments and I continued on through college. I started writing rhymes, I guess more like poetry that rhymed in high school and when I got into college my grandma passed away. I was really close to her and she didn’t have a lot of money to give all the grand kids but she just left everybody like fifteen hundred dollars and with that money I didn’t want to spend it on bills or anything stupid. I wanted to do

something really important with it, something that I thought would carry me through life and so I actually bought my first sampler keyboard. I started making beats with my roommate at the time and he and I formed God-Des. He was actually an opera singer but he had an incredible soul voice. We were also in a punk band together. Every time our punk band played, nobody really liked it but they liked the hip-hop part we did. So he and I started making beats and performing around Madison and this started to build up a pretty big buzz. Then he had to go away to grad school for opera so I wanted to find another singer. I really liked the melodic element with hip-hop and I heard She singing in her rock band Doll. I asked her if she wanted to do hooks on the side with God-Des and she was like, “Hip-hop? Oh okay, I guess I’ll try it.” (Laughter) And we just connected really well musically, our chemistry was pretty undeniable. We knew we had to go to one of the bigger cities so we chose New York, the home of hip-hop. We packed up our U-Haul and we moved to New York and the rest is history.

GayCalgary: When did you guys start playing together?

God-Des: We started playing together in like 2000. People think they saw us on The L-Word and we were this new band, but we were doing things way before that.

GayCalgary: Do you think being on The L-Word was a big thing for you?

God-Des: Oh Absolutely. It was definitely the right move, I mean we certainly got a lot of attention from the song “Lick It” and people remembered it. The next morning after it aired I was in Manhattan selling beer. I remember looking in my inbox on my phone and it said I had 200 new messages and I was like, “holy crap, what the heck.” It was instant, within about a month of being on the show both of us quit our jobs and have been able to do God-des and She full time ever since.

GayCalgary: What would you guys classify your musical style as? Would you say hip-hop?

God-Des: No, that’s just so hard to describe, especially when you hear Three, you’re going to be like holy crap, what is this? I was thinking a new funny name would be Urb/Pop. I think it’s a mix between hip-hop, pop and soul music. I think that’s probably the best description.

GayCalgary: Your new album is called Three. Is this by any chance your third album?

God-Des: It is, (laughter) it’s pretty literal! But, we named it three for a lot of different reasons. 3 is kind of the magic and lucky number. We were on the season three finale of The L-Word, this is our third record, we mixed it at Chuck D’s house in long Island and we’ll just say it had a lot of three’s in it. My birthday is in March, it’s a three, and I’m also going to be having some 3’s in my birthday coming up this year.

GayCalgary: What’s your favourite God-Des and She song?

God-Des: Man. (Sigh) it’s really hard to say. The new record only has ten songs on it and we put ten songs on it that we truly, truly loved. I really like “Love Machine” I think that’s going to be the first single and I just think it’s really fun and I never get sick of it. I think

that song She does, “Blue in the Face” is a great track. Everything’s so different, each song, but, I like ‘em all!

GayCalgary: What’s your favourite song to perform?

God-Des: I really like performing “Respect My Fresh”, that’s the real hip-hop sounding one on the record. We always get the crowd singing really loud. It’s really fun to dance to and when the beat drops it’s really cool. It’s always fun to sing songs that people know. I mean, I do have to admit I’m rather sick of singing “Lick it” (laughs). I used to love doing “Love You Better” because a lot of people know that song and it’s really cute to hear people singing along.

GayCalgary: Was there some controversy about the “Lick It” music video in Canada.

God-Des: Oh, I don’t know about in Canada, but there was some controversy here in the States. MTV banned it. We thought that was so fucked up, because they’ll play all these really degrading, over sexualized, violent videos and they wouldn’t play that. We were pretty upset about it, but hey, we kept it moving and now they play it late night.

GayCalgary: So who makes up the majority of your fan base?

God-Des: I think the majority are girls and queer girls, but it’s really starting to change. I think our music is really universal and it kind of speaks to everybody so I definitely don’t think its bias in age. A lot of people think oh its hip-hop, its young kids but you wouldn’t believe how many 50 and 60 year old women buy our stuff.

GayCalgary: Are you involved in any queer community stuff in your hometown?

God-Des: We’ve always done a lot of human rights campaign benefits, and we’ve done a ton of just queer benefits. We did

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 Interview - Cont’d

something in New York; they have this really cool organization that gives homes to homeless gay kids. They provide them with shelter and schooling and stuff, we’ve played at the school. I guess it sounds corny, but we really just want world peace and equality for everybody.

Next we spoke to She...

GayCalgary: So when did you start making music?

She: I was in a rock band for a long time before I even joined up with God-des. We actually met at a national organization of women benefit. She heard me sing...she’s extra pushy to be honest (laughs), so she convinced me cause I wasn’t really. …My voice is soulful so it lends itself to R&B and stuff but I never thought I’d be in a Hip Hop group (laughs). I play guitar and I write music that’s real different than God-des and She but I was like oh it will be fun, I’ll write some hooks and see what happens. So I started writing choruses and stuff, and we started performing under just the name God-Des. I would just stand there and sing the choruses and it was boring (laughs). I was used to being the front person of a five piece band so then just to be a chorus singer was weird to me and really foreign. Over time I started to do her doubles and we really interacted a lot on stage and the longer we’ve been together the more integrated the singing and the rapping. It’s very interwoven now, and it’s created a really cool new sound.

GayCalgary: Do you have solo stuff going on?

She: This is such a full time job right now. We are our own team and we’re business women and this is a full time business so we’re very focused on God-Des and She right now. Once everything is more a machine and we have a team and things are rolling along I think I will definitely do some solo stuff. I love playing guitar and singing and writing music, all different kinds. I do some triphop stuff, I love singing rock and I just love creating music in all different genres and stuff. I think it comes through in our songs, because the new record especially is really all over the place.

GayCalgary: What’s your favourite God-Des and She song?

She: Man it changes all the time, I love “Respect My Fresh” I think it’s a super fun song to perform and people really respond to it. I also like “Radio Up” a lot, it really speaks to what’s going on in the music industry and how nothing really makes you feel anything. When you turn on the radio, it all sounds the same. I think that we’ve really lost the heroes of music. There used to be heroes, where you not only loved their songs, but you loved them and I think that’s what we’re trying to bring back. We want to be 56

GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine #76, February 2010

people’s heroes again, where they feel like they can relate to us and connect with us. I think that’s what separates somebody like Beyonce, she seems very untouchable to me, and she seems more like a product. So I think that there’s something missing when you turn on the radio and the song doesn’t give you goose bumps or you don’t get the chills. That is what we want to change and bring back to the people, that would be great!

GayCalgary: Tell me about the fundraiser section on your website.

She: Well, we are completely independent and we spent a great deal of money on this record; getting a really good producer, a good studio a good PR company. It’s just very expensive and we are asking our fans to help us out, if they have anything extra to send us. It’s been fairly successful, we’ll say the spiel at a festival and we’ll make a lot of extra money. We’ve been extra independent and have been doing this on our own from the beginning and it’s an expensive job to have. Every penny we make, we put back into our business, besides the bare essentials to live on you know. So it’s never an easy task, but we have a lot of integrity because we don’t have a record label telling us what we can and can’t do.

GayCalgary: Have you guys ever been on a label?

She: We had one song signed to Sony, on a compilation for Music with a Twist and that really didn’t get anywhere. Everybody’s like, “God, I can’t believe you guys aren’t signed.” At the same time, that dream of being signed is very archaic, it doesn’t work in the same way anymore and records are not selling in the same way. We sell a lot of records personally to people and we sell a lot of downloads.

People don’t buy hard copy CD’s as much as they used to. So that whole business model, it doesn’t really fly anymore. We just need the right connections, to get on TV again and to get a good video out. A lot of the fundraising is to do a video. We want to film a video for “Love Machine” by summer at the latest, and we have all of our ducks in a row but it’s just really hard to make the money that you need because it’s expensive.

GayCalgary: When you’re doing your own stuff, you’re the ones pounding the pavement and making your life what it is, right?

She: Right, and we answer all our own e-mails and we do our own Facebook and Myspace. So anytime anybody contacts us on those places, it’s us reading it and responding and taking the time out to answer any questions or connect with them. At any music festival or gay pride or any show we stay after and sign and take pictures with whoever wants them. Sometimes it takes like two or three hours, but that’s part of your job, that’s part of what it means to be an artist, you give the people their moments and it means so much to them. Sometimes that’s the hardest part for me because I’m exhausted but if I didn’t do that, then I’d feel like such a douche bag (laughs). Honestly, we’re very real; we’re very down to earth.

We love what we do; we’re greatful that we get to do it. We’re just normal; we put our pants on one leg at a time. Sometimes people are so nervous to meet us, it makes me laugh. I’m like, “yo homie, we could like totally chill and have a beer, grill out, it’s cool.” We’re probably never going to be different than that.

GayCalgary: Do you guys hang out together when you’re off the road or are you sick of each other?

She: It’s almost like being around each other is like being alone (laughs), ‘cause we’re so used to each other. Right now we spend all of our time together because we are working so hard and doing all our booking and the business. I just moved to Austin and I’m in the process of getting my own place and so right now were 24/7.

It’s like a marriage that you can’t get divorced from, so you gotta figure it out. We know each other really well and we give each other our space when we need it and are down for each other, probably more than anyone, ever, just ‘cause it’s more than a marriage, more than a business partner, it’s more than a friend. I really feel like if we’re able to break through, that we are going to change the face of music and what it means and how people connect to it. I just want to bring some joy, love and goodness back into the industry and I think that we can - I am determined.

http://www.gaycalgary.com/a1585

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