By Rob Diaz-Marino
December 31st was not just the end of a year, it was the end of a decade. It seems like it was just yesterday that we were celebrating the turn of the next century, perhaps cowering a little from the ominous predictions about Y2K. But a great deal has changed in a mere 10 years for LGBT Albertans.
The face of the local community has certainly progressed. Calgary gained the likes of The Calgary Eagle, Priape, GayCalgary Magazine, Twisted Element, and Girlsgroove but we also lost Boyztown/Rekroom, Detour/Arena/Loading Dock, The Verge, Pride Resource Centre, B&D Emporium, Barbies Shop (retail location only, they are still running online) and Camp181 to name a few. Businesses like Indulge and Solar Café made brief appearances; projects like BLVD/Loft never materialized at all; only time will tell with promises like Options. GLCSA relocated and renamed themselves to Calgary Outlink. Apollo hosted the 1st North American Outgames in Calgary, ARGRA outgrew Symon’s Valley Ranch and moved the rodeo to Strathmore. Miscellaneous Youth Network was born as an independent initiative to support young, and sometimes under-age LGBT individuals, hosting regular Drag King performances at the Soda. Carly’s Angels successfully brings classy drag shows to a primarily straight audience at the Village Cantina/Club Paradiso.
Our knowledge of what went on in Edmonton is a bit more limited. With local papers Fresh and Times10 simultaneously folding, GayCalgary Magazine expanded to provide coverage of Edmonton as of 2006. We know that Edmonton gained Buddys, Woodys, Play, Team Edmonton, and Camp fYrefly in the past decade but lost The Roost, B&D Emporium, and Steamers. The Pride Centre of Edmonton moved to its larger location to better serve the city, and a new annual tradition began with the establishment of Exposure Festival. The BEEF Bearbash group started their bi-monthly bar night that has become one of the largest Bear events in Alberta.
In addition, we saw LGBT groups start up in several smaller cities such as Mountain Pride out of Banff, and as well, Lethbridge had their first Pride Celebration.
We also saw big changes in the entertainment scene. The number of LGBT characters on television shows exploded: Ugly Betty incorporated numerous gay and lesbian characters, as well as prominent Trans character Alexis Meade, without becoming a specifically “gay-themed show”; the creators of Family Guy admit Stewie, one of the most popular characters, is probably gay. American Dad and Desperate Housewives have recurring gay neighbours. Torchwood, a sci-fi series out of the UK (spin-off from the Dr. Who franchise) had gay main character Jack Harkness. Brothers & Sisters made history as the first drama to show the marriage of a gay character to his boyfriend on American Network TV. The list goes on, with some websites documenting well over 500 characters introduced, up slightly from approximately 300 in the 90’s, and drastically from the list of less than 100 in the 80’s.
Reality TV shows began regularly selecting at least one gay or lesbian cast member and through them showed the world what real LGBT individuals are like. Richard Hatch, an openly gay business man, was the winner of the first season of Survivor; for the first time, a trans individual appears as a contestant on America’s Next Top Model. Talk show host Rosie O’Donnell comes out of the closet, and openly gay comedian Ellen Degeneres gets a talk show of her own. RuPaul’s Drag Race blows the drag-queen closet wide open to the mainstream, airing on MuchMoreMusic.
Furthermore, we saw the inception of many popular shows for LGBT audiences, such as Queer as Folk and The L-Word. Canada got its first 24-hour LGBT channel, Pridevision, which later became OUTtv. Influential movies like Brokeback Mountain and Milk made their debuts.
Many LGBT media outlets made severe predictions about the disappearance of the LGBT community as discrimination at straight establishments began to disappear. However, it seems that people now go to gay bars because they want to, not because they have to.
In Canada we gained the right to marry, and finally saw a lift to the HIV travel ban to the US as of the start of this year. On the Alberta level, the introduction of the Tobacco Reduction Act pushed our bars to become smoke-free environments, but later Health Canada refreshed its ban on the donation of blood and organs from gay and bisexual men. The Alberta government discontinued coverage of Gender Reassignment Surgery for transsexuals, and passes Bill 44 to ensure the continued ignorance of the next generation, especially regarding awareness of LGBT issues. And yet, the upper house of the Imperial Sovereign Court of the Wild Rose were the first LGBT monarchs to be formally introduced to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta – Empress Marni Gras the first to be permitted to wear a crown, a privilege otherwise reserved for the Queen of England herself.
I’m sure you can think of many more things that have changed in the past decade, but that’s all I have space for this month.
December 2009
Calgary Men’s Chorus held their annual Christmas concert and sold out so fast that they held an encore performance the next day.
AGRA held their annual Christmas Dinner. Hardcore members braved the -30 wind chill temperature, but were rewarded with good food, friendly company, and an eclectic but fun selection of songs by Jeffrey Straker.
The following night was the Christmas dinner at the Calgary Eagle, which was as usual a sold-out event. We were treated to a wonderful multi-course meal in the company of friends. Later in the month, the Eagle’s own David K. volunteered himself to be the Living Christmas Tree and thus was accordingly painted green and made to endure the pinch of a hundred clothespin ornaments. David was perhaps the most difficult Living Christmas Tree, as his skin didn’t pinch so easily (I’m jealous). After fastening the ornaments that I purchased, I assisted in re-attaching the ones that kept popping off.
We decided to do something slightly different this Holiday Season to show our appreciation for Priape, Calgary Eagle, Money Pennies, Texas Lounge, the Backlot, and our readers who frequent those establishments. We wanted to go with a more personal touch, so we bought and decorated several spruce saplings. For decoration we finally found a use for all the old Mardi Gras beads we had laying around, some store bought lights and mini-ornaments, and as the final touch, some custom-made ornaments that represented our past year’s worth of magazine covers.
Christmas with the Polyaks wasn’t as much of a muddle as in past years. Mom Polyak got a proper cone-shaped tree (rather than a cylindrical one), we skipped the get together that included one of her religiously overzealous family friends with whom Steve always manages to get into an argument (last year he was determined to debunk her suggestion about feeding unpasteurized milk, honey, and raw liver to our newborn niece and nephew), and for the first time we were able to host a family get together at our place. The little ones, Tristan and Gabby, had a wonderful time terrorizing our cats to the point where poor Sparky soiled himself. But otherwise they were really impressed with how far the house had come - having not seen it since we moved in, it felt much more homey when furnished. I spent Christmas Eve with my family and got to spend time with my dad who had just gotten back from his annual winter holiday in Mexico.
Rumor: “Steve and Rob have moved to Edmonton and that’s why they’re not around so much these days.” Ummm…no. In fact, we barely made it up to Edmonton at all this month. With such icy road conditions, there were many days when we were scared to drive around Calgary, never mind make the trip up to Edmonton. The only exception was for New Years, when Steve took the Greyhound up for the evening.
Steve and I spent New Year’s Eve apart: he covered the parties in Edmonton while I covered the ones in Calgary. We kept in contact by phone and text, but got to do our celebrating together the next day instead. I was pleased to see that many of the bars were very busy. You could barely move at Money Pennies, where I caught more photos of the poor straight doorman Darren getting molested by Oran. MPs has been offering a designated driver service for the past few New Years, which I totally commend them for. As I stopped by the Backlot to say hi to Mark and snap some photos, I did not envy the people freezing themselves in the line up outside for Vinyl. Goliaths was having their special New Years dance, but to respect the privacy of patrons I only took photos of people on the Texas Lounge side. I ended up at the Calgary Eagle which was very well attended, and sadly was one of the only sober people in the room after midnight. Gotta be responsible now that I’m driving!
In Edmonton, Steve had to deal with even colder temperatures as he walked between bars. The turnout probably wasn’t as good as what we saw in Calgary, but who can blame them with the weather. Most memorable for him was the Ice Sculpture by Schmirnoff that added flair to Play’s party, the Star Wars characters at Prism, and the boys getting very raunchy at Boots.
This Month
January may be a fairly quiet month but still the community doesn’t stop. I can’t say this is a packed issue, but at least we continue to publish a magazine even for the slow months. As nice as it would be to take a break here and again, we can’t justify the irregularity it would cause for our readers and advertisers – don’t want to lose that consistency!
Magazine Updates
This first month of the year has traditionally been the time we refresh the magazine design; a time to finally implement any improvements we’ve been considering (from our own thoughts and experience, and from suggestions made by readers), try some new things and modify a few others. We like doing it this way because it means we can offer our advertisers and readers a certain consistency in our product over the period of the next year. It shows that we have taken the time to carefully consider these alterations before we make them, as opposed to what we have observed in other magazines where monthly stylistic changes can seem like thrashing. Plus, we’ve found the overall effect is better noticed and appreciated by our readers.
Last year January we not only launched a fresh magazine design, but we also published our first issue with the color section on glossy paper. This year we continue to capitalize on that glossy with a further evolved design. While we’re not here for the sake of being pretty, it doesn’t hurt to put effort each year into improving our aesthetic appeal.
One major functional rearrangement we have made is to our monthly Directory & Events section, where we have finally separated the events from their directory listings. It seemed logical from our standpoint where I would dread updating the directory each month, and it was also something requested by readers to get the info without so much digging.
The Events Listing outlines the standard set of weekly events for each city, as well as any special upcoming events pertaining to paid advertisers, non-profit groups, and events that we sponsor. Please note that the information in these event listings either refers directly to the venue where it is happening, or will tell you to see the appropriate listing for more information. In cases like this, the directory listings will still contain information about the location and nature of events, but any scheduled dates and times will be mentioned strictly in the event listing. In addition, we’ve made some simple updates to further improve the readability of the Directory, such as lines between listings.
All in all, I think we’re starting the year on the right foot.
