Last month I wrote about my less than satisfying trip to Cuba with my dad this past January.  I really wasn’t planning on taking another holiday with him for a while, but an intriguing opportunity to spend time in Mexico with two of my cousins, who would be flying out from Spain, had me thinking twice.  My holiday time from work rolled over in March so I had additional time available for the planned trip in October.  At first I only gave a tentative yes.

But negotiating for the time span of the trip was particularly aggravating.  After my time in Cuba I felt 2 weeks was about my limit for enduring my dad, yet he was pushing for 3 weeks total, and to leave right before our press deadline for the October edition.  As much as I argued for 2 weeks and a later departure, he had his mind set and left it up to me to figure out a way to schedule it with my work, even if it meant taking unpaid time off.  There was no way I was prepared to do any of that, so I made the decision not to go.  Only after I broke the news to him was he was finally willing to settle on two weeks and pushing our departure forward enough that I could get the October edition completed.  He grumbled that this would diminish our ability to explore some of the back roads he has wanted to check out for years, but I told him that was just too bad.

On Friday, October 5th we left Calgary at 4am to begin our marathon drive down to Baja California, the peninsula off the west coast of Mexico, which has been a favorite holiday spot for our family for many past summers.  As usual, hotels were out of the question along the way – we slept in the back of his Subaru Forrester at truck stops.  We just about didn’t have dinner the first evening as my dad practically threw a tantrum trying to pick up food at Burger King.  We couldn’t go inside on foot because the interior was undergoing renovations, and my dad admitted he had never done drive-thru before so didn’t understand the procedure.  Not that it was a particularly difficult thing to learn, but his excuse was, "I’m too old for this shit."

We crossed the Mexican border at 3pm the second day.  The border is always complete mayhem with the high volumes of traffic, confusing signage, and inability to backtrack if you make a mistake.  We needed to stop to pick up tourist permits and, having missed the entrance to the parking area for this, my dad pulled the car in amongst a semi-circle of spiked barricades designed for the border guards to stand in.  Spanish is my dad’s first language, and amazingly he was able to convince them to let us leave our vehicle there while we got our permits.  Then we crossed over to Mexico.

We can’t seem to make it out of Tijuana without at least one wrong turn.  We were just about home free on the correct route when my dad, right before the highway forked, decided to cut across two lanes of traffic without signaling, onto the wrong road.  I had been taking pictures out the window, which was grounds for him to yell at me for not paying attention to where we were going.  Even with my full attention, I doubt I could have predicted what he was going to do, or say anything fast enough that we could recover.  But whatever, we found somewhere to turn around and got back on track with little difficulty, save for me now in a bad mood and scared to bring the camera back out again.

I was already irritated by my dad’s reckless driving through the US, but it got markedly worse now that we were in Mexico.  According to him, they don’t enforce speed limits and traffic signs as adamantly in Mexico as they do in the US and Canada, so he took this as his queue to do whatever suited him.  Apparently, in his mind, traffic rules aren’t in place for his safety and that of other drivers on the road -  they are there merely as an excuse for the police to ticket him.  Now that threat was lifted.  He went nearly twice the speed limit in some places, straddled multiple lanes, blew through stop signs and rarely bothered to use his turn signals.  I got a lot of practice steering the car from the passenger seat while he rifled through maps, fumbled with CDs, and realized while already in motion that he hadn’t fastened his seatbelt.  It happened so many times that eventually I gave up complaining.  He has survived this long, so I guess he can pull it off.

I was thankful for the few opportunities I got to take a driving shift because I knew I was far less likely to get us into an accident.  This was my first time driving a manual transmission over long distances, so my dad’s advice in this regard was useful even though his tone was sometimes aggravating to me (and included general driving advice straight from the book of his bad habits).

On the morning of the 3rd day, just south of San Felipe, he got the idea to try to find a beach where we could go swimming.  As we arrived at one that looked promising, he decided to test the Subaru Forester out in the sand for the first time.  Despite me telling him even this car would likely get caught in the deep soft sand, he took it for a spin and proceeded to get it stuck as I had predicted.  I got out to push, and we made it a few more metres, but the car started to billow blue smoke from the hood due to him gunning the engine too hard.  A kind, friendly (and somewhat woofy) guy by the name of Jose-Luis, who was staying at a nearby house on the beach visiting family, came to help us out.  My dad, who hates asking people for help in the first pace, fought the guy’s advice every step of the way.  I tried my best to stay out of it – it was his car – though when my dad was on the verge of shooting a fire extinguisher into the engine, and Jose Luis was pleading with him and me not to, then finally I stepped in to back up Jose-Luis and talk some sense into my dad.  Finally dad stepped back and let Jose-Luis help us.  I could tell the man sympathized with my situation dealing with the stubborn old goat, and thankfully he didn’t give up on us.  He enlisted the help of some friends with pick-up trucks to pull us free of the sand, and got us back on solid ground.  We didn’t go for our swim at that beach in the end; my dad, trying to cover up his embarrassment, just wanted to get away as quickly as possible.  But before I got back in the car, my parting handshake with Jose-Luis collapsed into a big hug to express my deep gratitude for his help, patience and understanding.  That and...did I mention he was hot?

The rest of the week wasn’t any less miserable.  I was sleep-deprived from the poor quality inflatable mattress and folded blanket repurposed to be a pillow that my dad had brought for me to sleep on; hungry from the insufficient portions of rice and freshly caught fish he cooked, or the tiny tortillas we bought at road-side stands.  As ravenous as I was, I had to throw out half of my last substantial sandwich from home because all the ice in our cooler had melted and the water had seeped through the plastic wrap.  On top of that I was sore from sitting in the car for so long, but even when we stopped, I didn’t have the energy to get out and do anything.  My dad seemed to interpret all of this as me being "moody and difficult".

I quickly came to the realization that those back roads my dad wanted to explore so badly were in such bad condition for the very fact that they didn’t lead to anything important or interesting enough to warrant paving them.  The people that needed to travel on them all owned bigger trucks than us, and could plough through the rough terrain with little trouble.  In our case, traveling these roads came at the expense of moving at slow speeds to avoid scraping the bottom of the vehicle, or falling into the ruts that the recent rainfall had washed out.  It took us nearly 4 hours to travel 50km along the unpaved roads south of San Felipe, until we finally returned to the paved main road again.

We camped a few days at Bahia de Los Angeles, where I was happy to have a cot to sleep on.  The first night I pulled my cot out from under the shelter of the Palapa so that I could look up at the beautiful starry sky.  I tried doing the same the next night, but the buffeting wind forced me to move back into shelter.  Though better than the inflatable mattress, my back still hurt throughout the night, and the next morning.

My dad hired a local fisherman to take us out in his boat to go fishing around the islands off the coast.  We also tried to make an excursion to Bahia Las Animas just south of there, however it was more unpaved surface and ultimately we found that the road was washed out and impassible only a kilometer or two away from our destination.  There was nothing to do but turn around and go all the way back.  On the plus side, the desert scenery was still beautiful, and probably the greenest we’ve ever seen it.  I did my best to snap photos as we jostled along.

After a few more days of travelling and making side-trips to favorite beaches from past visits (which I was still too drained to enjoy) and underwhelming fishing camps and shanty villages (I don’t know what my dad expected to find), I was relieved to reach our final destination of La Ventana, near La Paz.  My dad keeps our family tent trailer stored there, as he visits Baja every year, and I was anxious to retrieve it so that we could finally live and sleep in better comfort.

My cousins Fernando and Carlos arrived on the Friday night at the airport in La Paz, where we picked them up.  I haven’t seen anyone from this side of the family in over 10 years, and this was a rare chance for me to reconnect with them, and them with me, without distractions from our respective lives.

Fernando, the oldest sibling in a family of 7 brothers and sisters, looked completely different from the way I remembered him from 10 years ago.  Gone was his short hair and goatee, replaced with a long-haired, clean shaven, Antonio Banderas type of look.  I was concerned about how I would get along with Fernando because I remembered him being a bit of a bully when we were kids, and I didn’t have much contact with him the last time I saw him.  As I discovered, the years had tempered him into a very nice person with a similar appreciation for nature and photography to myself, so the two of us got along very well.

Carlos with his blazing red hair, was an anomaly amongst the brown-haired complexions of his siblings.  This is likely the result of the same elusive genetics that cause me to have red hairs sprinkled throughout my beard.  He is probably the tallest of his siblings, with a now graying beard and shaved head.  Because of his fairer complexion, he also burns very easily and had to take draconian precautions by diligently applying sunscreen even under his shirt, always wearing a hat, and even tying a kerchief around his head to shield his nose and cheeks.

I enjoyed myself a great deal more when they were around.  For one, they helped take the pressure off me so that I wasn’t the only person that my dad had to talk to.  I was humored to see my dad’s antics annoyed them too, but as he was their uncle, they felt less entitled to speak up about it.

On the night they arrived, they generously offered me olives, cheese, and dried meats that they had brought with them from Spain.  In days to follow, they pushed for us to do more fun stuff like hiking and exploring, visiting beaches and cities, going out to restaurants, checking out parties and drinking lots of beer.  I finally got my wish of having people my own age to spend time with.  I felt motivated to use and improve on my Spanish speaking skills, leading to some good chats about my family in Spain, and what was safe to tell them about my life back in Canada.  I have fewer reservations about coming out to them than to my dad, but I didn’t feel this was the time or place for it.  However, I found it endearing that as brothers they would still roughhouse from time to time, yet at the dinner table Fernando would keep his left foot stacked on top of Carlos’ right without objection.  As an only child, I’ve never experienced this kind of sibling closeness.

When it came to fishing this year, I decided I wasn’t going to patronize my dad any more by pretending to enjoy it.  It never really seemed like I was the one fishing, I was just doing the work for my dad.  He had ruined it for me in previous years by taking the rod away from me when he figured a fish was too difficult for me to reel in, and by fishing in such greedy excess that we had to offload them onto other people or they would go bad.  Carlos seemed to be cut from the same cloth as my dad, and was thrilled to catch as much as he could.  Fernando made attempts to fish, but was less greedy about keeping what he caught.  After my dad snapped at him about getting their lines crossed, he joined me in refusing to fish, and so we focused more on taking pictures and enjoying the scenery.

On my last night in Mexico before catching my flight back, my cousins did the impossible and convinced my dad to rent a hotel room in Los Cabos.  We were having difficulties finding camping in the area, and I was running a fever due to food poisoning from a bad fish taco I had eaten at a restaurant the night before, so my dad conceded.

Fernando came to the rescue with some Ibuprofen and had me feeling almost 100% again.  Despite this disqualifying me from drinking alcohol, I still went out with my cousins (against my dad’s will) to check out the night scene in the famous tourist city.  We hung out in a few of the bars and had a fun time taking it all in, however as the night wore on the medication began to wear off and I decided to retire.

With my flight in the afternoon of the next day, we occupied our morning with a boat tour out to the southernmost tip of the Baja peninsula, and the spectacular cliffs, arches, and caves nearby - something my dad would have shot down as being too expensive before even inquiring the price.  At only $10 per person, he conceded on this as well.  If only my whole holiday could have been fun like that last 24 hours.

As horrendous as a lot of this may sound, I can at least say I took away some valuable albeit hard learned lessons.  For one, it’s time I updated my definition of a holiday.  As a grown man, it takes different things to make me happy on a vacation than it did when I was a kid.

Certainly I need Steve with me to be happy, and I need the freedom to make my own decisions, to follow my own schedule, to struggle and make my own mistakes so that I can grow.  I can’t do any of this when I leave everything up to my dad, in fact, this is probably the reason we were at each other’s throats.

He hasn’t seen enough of my life to realize I’m a responsible and independent individual with my own preferences and ideas.  That’s mostly my fault for being in the closet to him (which is another issue I will need to face eventually).  So while he carries the exasperating burden of feeling responsible for someone in their 30s, his taking control systematically cuts me off from everything I need to be independent, and so I fall back into the role of helplessness.

Most kids go through a "rebellious phase" probably as a means of breaking this self-renewing cycle.  I have never done that, I’ve always been the "good kid" to my parents.  So this trip finally gave me the opportunity and motivation I needed to duke it out with my dad and cement in both our minds that I’m not a kid any more.  From now on, I’ll plan my own vacations with Steve.

Before anyone’s blood pressure goes up, I’ll lead with saying I have nothing to gripe about this year.

As we’ve done in previous years, we’ve work in conjunction with the ISCCA in Calgary, and the ISCWR in Edmonton to put on a fundraiser that benefits the charities of each subsequent group by offering attendees the opportunity for a photo with drag performers.  Often the courts will sell other items for additional fundraising, such as leis in Calgary, and calendars in Edmonton (see the article in this edition about the ISCWR calendar).

The role of Steve and I, aside from promoting our magazine, is to provide the equipment and technical backup for the courts to do these photo booths.  So we handle taking the photos, printing them out, and recording the information to send people electronic copies.

Last year we introduced a handy new feature – an automated photo ticket management system on our website.  Some tedious data entry was still required, as we used a log book to record people’s Email addresses that then needed to be entered into the system and associated with their photos.  However, once that was done, the system would automatically Email people the instructions and link to retrieve their photos.

This year we took another step in automating the process to make our lives easier.  I created a program that I could run on my laptop at the show where we would input the Email addresses and associated photos directly into the computer.  It saved the information to a database on my laptop, and then later when I had an internet connection, I exported them to our main website database.  It saved a huge amount of data entry time, and avoided mistakes due to unreadable handwriting.

Amazingly this system only took me two evenings to program, however I was able to improve on it even further during calm periods at the shows.  We now have a robust and well-tested piece of software that we can use in future.

But enough about us.  We were impressed by the large range of individuals from each organization that showed up to help out at their city’s show.  In Calgary, two people stuck out as our "star salespeople": Dale Eby, who like last year showed incredible commitment to the tasks he took on, as well as Joey (Lucy Fur) whose outgoing personality could bring people over for photos in rapid succession.  In Edmonton, the stars were definitely the current reigning Emperor and Empress 37, Vanity Fair and JJ Velour, who roped people in to sell a great number of calendars and photos.  We’d like to thank both courts for their efforts this year, and all the volunteers who showed up in drag, leather, or plain clothes to help raise money.

While the ISCCA sold more photos, the ISCWR made more money from their calendar sales, and the two are about neck in neck: the ISCCA’s official total came to $2036, and the ISCWR’s came to $2170.  Certainly nothing to be ashamed of!

Forgive me while I roll my eyes, and resist the temptation to physically slap anyone who is even slightly worried about this.  I’m confident that the world will still be here on December 22nd, and for many billions of years to come.  If I’m wrong and the world does come to an end that day, then I give every one of our readers permission to kick me in the groin in the afterlife.

From what I understand, this latest prediction in a long string of false alarms comes from the fact that the Mayan calendar ends on what is our December 21st, along with some other numerological nonsense that doesn’t deserve any real estate in my brain.

So what?  My wall calendar stops at December 31st, 2012, but that doesn’t mean the world is ending after that.  It just means I need to buy a new calendar for 2013!

The whole Y2K scare wasn’t because computer manufacturers believed the world would end before the year 2000, it just meant that they wanted to conserve computer memory and didn’t consider that their products would still be in use by that time.  Much like the Mayans probably just wanted to conserve stone carving, and didn’t consider that idiots in the future would still be paying heed to their calendar.

Keeping track of time is a mathematical nightmare, so you can’t expect them to have done all that work to map things out indefinitely.  They had to stop somewhere, and it just happened to be December 21st, 2012.

If the Mayans were still around today, they would simply have extended their calendars, so that idiots in another 5000 years could freak out over nothing.

Here we go, the final edition of GayCalgary Magazine for 2012.  All of us here would like to wish all of our readers a Merry Christmas, or Seasons Greetings if you prefer, along with our hopes for a happy, healthy, and downright fabulous New Year!