Okay, so the first part of my letter from the publisher last month really sucked. As one of our writers kindly put it, “it’s good to challenge people,” but I think I might have gone a little too far. I did justify that I only came to this understanding via my education in Computer Science, which is a realm heavy in math, logic, and philosophy. So if you got what I was saying then good for you! But let’s have a publisher’s column this month that we can all understand, shall we?
The amount of construction downtown is getting completely ridiculous. A comedian that preceded the Wet Spots at Yuk Yuk’s last month stated, “Calgary is a nice city…can’t wait until it’s finished!” It’s not just motorists that are running into problems – in fact, right now they seem more inclined to close sidewalks than roads, making it difficult for pedestrians. I usually walk down 1st Street SW to get from home to the train station, and I have to cross back and forth several times because of sidewalks closures. I now have no choice but to walk in front of the straight bars along that strip, which is something I prefer to avoid especially in the evenings. We can no longer take our usual routes to the bars because so many sidewalks are closed, and even have to take detours upon on our usual detours. In the past the city has tried to do construction in a manner that minimizes the interference for the people that regularly use these public corridors, but they seem to be allowing everything to be torn apart just to get it over with quicker. Hurry up already!
Steve’s birthday and our anniversary were at the beginning of this month, but we had to delay celebrations by a few days as we finished getting over our flus and fevers. Steve had caught it as we were going to press last month, and I followed a few days after. Had I not been sick, we could have celebrated while up at the West Canadian Pride Campout, but we had to decline and ask our friend Don to cover for us. As it was last year, we regretted missing this unique and fun event. Once I was finally over the rough patch a few days later, we were finally able to go out for a romantic dinner together.
Despite Steve being a good 9 years older than me, I am currently beating him in the grey hair department. Pretty much over night, a patch of 10 grey hairs appeared in the soul-patch of my beard (the area under my lower lip). At first I thought I had gotten toothpaste on myself - or perhaps something else! Very few people have commented about it, even my parents pretend like they don’t see it, and I feel like that guy who has food stuck on his face but everyone is too polite to tell him. I also feel a little like Rogue from X-Men with this random streak of white - not that I’ve been through anything I would describe as traumatic.

Last Month
August is traditionally the slowest month of the year in the gay community, as people are on holiday or stealing their last opportunities to go camping. It is our chance to take somewhat of a break from event coverage and concentrate on getting caught up on things that we have difficulties scheduling during busier months. For me it has meant working on a new version of the GayCalgary.com website, to be launched sometime this coming month. I finally get to make good on dreams and promises of a number of unique features, which trickle down to benefit the non-profit group sites that we host. But for now I don’t want to ruin the surprise. I’ll let you explore for yourself once the new site goes public.
The event that broke our two weeks of hermit-hood was the AFQOL Meat and Greet at Money Pennies. Jason, Lizaine and family made Money Pennies more than just a venue for this event – they gave a lot of themselves, from acquiring sponsorship of the Angus burgers to pledging contributions every time a family member sung Karaoke. A few members of the ISCCA also stepped in to help out where they were needed: Ashley did an amazing job selling the 50-50’s, though she recruited Justin and I to rip tickets; meanwhile poor Cory took on the BBQ not realizing this would be a trend throughout the rest of the month. The place was bustling during the afternoon, but was totally packed by the evening when a band came in to play. All in all, the event was a community effort and supremely paid off. I will let Linda Huston sum it all up in her AFQOL thank you letter next month, however I can say the final total ended up being close to two grand!
Aside from this, the only other events we were aware of in Calgary were the ISCCA barbecues at the Backlot and the Eagle, shooter bars at the Texas Lounge and the Eagle, and Starlit Nights with a Twist at Twisted. Though these events have been occurring just as frequently in previous months, they received our undivided attention for the last 2 weeks of August. While photographing the latter, I noticed that a new stage area was being built into a block of unused space off the Twisted Lounge. By now it’s looking pretty close to completion; thanks to the hard working Reymark guys, I’m told. The new stage has much better visibility throughout the lounge than the current area used for performances and Karaoke. It will be interesting to see what’s in store for this new area once complete.
All of the major events that feel like they should have been part of this month were actually concentrated during the September long weekend: The Cut-a-thon, Twisted’s Toga Party, and the first annual Chili Cook-off at the Calgary Eagle. We have to save photos of these events for next issue, but I do want to make special mention of the Chili Cook-off, a fundraiser for Beswick house, because it was something quite unique for Calgary. Contestants made use of their best chili recipes to post entries in the competition, and representatives from Beswick House rated them anonymously. Once the judging was over, the public was allowed to buy samples or full bowls of each entry. Steve and I had a great time sampling each one of the nine entries, though we got pretty stuffed in the process. In the course of this two-hour event, an amazing $2071 was raised! If you missed it this year, don’t fret because it is designated to become a yearly tradition…just like, I’m sure, cracking open a window will become a tradition to immediately follow (grin). Look for photographs in the next issue of GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine.

This Month
September is Bear month in the magazine because it coincides with Rocky Mountain Bears’ annual Bearbash get-together. It should be noted that the event is not being held at the same venue as the past several years – it has been moved to the Calgary Eagle. See the article on page 31 for more details.
This month’s cover features a bear and a bear chaser. Remember, you don’t have to be a bear yourself to attend Bearbash and have a good time! I’m just as much a chaser, and quite enjoy my job of photographing all the big burly guys that come out of the “woods” specifically for this event.


Where’s GayCalgary?
Several of our readers have asked us this month, and I’m sure more have wondered why our August magazine was not available at Twisted Element. It was not an oversight on our part. Due to the content of this edition, the owners of Twisted Element made a business decision that the magazines themselves were not welcome on their premise for that month, and decision pending on future months. When we asked the owners specifically why, they stated that we had given them an unfairly small proportion of coverage in the photo section compared to ARGRA (and the bars that held special events surrounding ARGRA), and that they felt my “Who Made You the Center of the Universe” article was targeted at them, though no specific names were mentioned.
The month prior, they were upset that we did not publish photos of any of their bike winners from their Sunday giveaways; that their Gay Pride Day photos did not contain a picture I had taken of RJ standing in front of their prizes (a row of flat screen televisions in cardboard boxes, probably not distinguishable as such in a small photo) or any of the prize winners themselves; that we had opted to publish the photo of the Calgary Men’s Chorus performing in their establishment over a photo of RJ handing the conductor a $500 cheque donation; and that the label for their Sexy shorts Grand Finale photos did not mention the prize amount of $1000, because it wasn’t obvious enough from the photo of the winner with the $50 bills tucked in his shorts. We were taken aback at such a long list of complaints for a single month – the photo selections were certainly an unfortunate coincidence but by no means intentional. We had no reason not to publish the photos they were hoping for – by luck of the draw, they simply did not get chosen. Perhaps my following section about our photo selection process will better help to explain why this might have occurred.
Another major complaint that they voiced to us was that they felt we are spending too much time and effort covering Edmonton for the relative amount of advertising we receive from Edmonton businesses. Steve spends an average of two weekends (6 days) every month covering events in our sister city, and when he’s away I cover all Calgary events. But I will reiterate later that our editorial content, including photographs, is not dependent on who spends more advertising dollars with us – it is about documenting the community, month to month, without the barriers of commercialism and politics. When the magazine may one day be the only legacy from this period in history, it would be a shame for the record to be skewed on account of who bought more advertising.
Nevertheless, the owners of Twisted stressed the extreme importance of these photos getting published due to concerns about their establishment’s reputation in the gay community. They deemed our not printing them a major oversight, and grounds to punish us by continuing to not advertise. My July column talked about how we stood up for Twisted Element when they were the new kid on the block, especially when receiving flack from Boyztown and Pulse. These two directly competing establishments, for obvious business reasons, did not want Twisted to gain a foothold in the community. But that was nearly three years ago; nowadays Twisted is a thriving business with a secure position as the only gay night club in Calgary. We cannot continue being a crutch for such a successful business – it’s not fair to us, and it’s not fair to everyone else. Sadly our attempt to gradually pull back over the past months, to treat them fairly and equally instead of sheltering them like a victim has lead to this response. Moving toward neutrality can seem like a hostile act because, relatively, it is a notch down from what they’ve come to expect from us.
We have received word from a number of individuals that the owners, when approached about the missing magazines, have said that the ball is in our court to fix this situation, and they will continue to not advertise (and perhaps not carry our publication) until they see us change to satisfy their conditions. After asking for guidance from our fondly proclaimed “big brother”, XTra! West, we found out our instincts to resist were correct - the best response is to not give in to pressure from advertisers, even if it hurts us in the short run. This is because the consequences can be a lot more serious down the line - compromising one’s journalistic integrity can be the slow death of a media outlet. Once you let one customer make their advertising conditional on specific self-serving demands, you will soon be juggling the specifications and conditions of other advertisers too. With conflicts and jealousy running amok, our magazine could become the battlefield in an escalating struggle between competing advertisers. When that happens, it becomes difficult for us to concentrate on what we do best. This sort of dilemma is very common in the publishing industry, and it was our first real taste of it.
For the most part our readers, journalistic peers, and advertisers think we are doing a great job. We’re open to constructive criticism, and we are working toward improving our business. A lot of times we are on the cutting edge of technology, being (as best we can tell) the first magazine in the world to provide integrated video in our online edition – not to mention the first gay magazine in Canada to have done online videos and live audio feeds at all. (A fun fact: our first online video was of the Devon Mills Labour Day Drag Show in 2000 – exactly 7 years ago from the time of me completing this article.) Other gay publications have only started making efforts to catch up this year, though we find it sad to see some pirating other people’s videos from YouTube to give the illusion.
We appreciate the support of our advertisers, and we continually look for new benefits to offer to them, (such as including their ads with their free directory listings online, links to their websites from their ads in the online edition, etc.) despite our rates being a third to a quarter that of other publications that do far less for the gay communities in Calgary and Edmonton. To keep things fair, we charge exactly the rates that are on our price sheets – no sales or random discounts that may favor one business over their competitor. But the magazine is not a tool to promote advertisers at every possible opportunity beyond the space that they pay for – we are a free press publication, not a catalog. Our coverage can sometimes result in benefits for businesses that show active participation in the community, but there is no guarantee what benefit, what message, or what prominence the coverage receives. That’s what advertising is for – to guarantee that your business receives exactly the message, benefit, and prominence that you want, outside of what the host media may or may not say. We do our best to keep things balanced, but it is highly dependent on what happens in the community from month to month.
All we can do now is to keep on going with what we do, whether we meet Twisted Element’s conditions or not. Regardless of their attempts to punish us, we continue to cover their events; it would be unfair to our readers, many of whom are also their customers, if we were to censor out that corner of the community merely because of a dispute between our two businesses – in fact, we wouldn’t be a very reputable paper if we operated that way. Though we are obviously not happy with the situation, we are not looking to do any sort of return damage; we would still like to resolve the situation amicably, without racking up further injury on either side. But the fact remains that our magazines were not available in their establishment for the month of August, and we were obligated to our readers and advertisers to truthfully explain why.
GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine is still available in close to 150 locations in Calgary and over 120 locations in Edmonton. August advertisers need not worry that their advertising received any less exposure because of this incident – our pick up rates have noticeably increased at other locations that we monitor, showing that most people still got a copy, even though they had to travel elsewhere for it.

Photos
A few people have asked us in the past, “Why didn’t my photo make it into the magazine?” In most cases, the best answer we can give is “because it didn’t.” It’s not that we’re trying to be curt, just that there are so many factors between taking the pictures and printing them that could have been the reason; we seldom remember exactly why.
First off, there are events happening in the community almost every day of the week – we cannot attend them all or else we would get nothing else done. That is why we have a set of rules to follow:
1) One-time special events and annual events take highest priority.
2) Monthly events follow, because if we miss it one month, we can make up for it the next.
3) Weekly events are usually not photographed unless they involve a non-profit group, and even so, are usually only covered once a month. However, we make an exception in the case of drag shows to ensure we maintain that element of gay culture in each issue.
Now, consider the fact that we take anywhere between 5000 and 15,000 photos in a month, depending on the line-up of events. After we have downloaded the photos from our cameras, the first thing we do is sort through them. During this step we eliminate any photos that are out of focus, too dark, washed out, have motion blurs etc. In the case of candid photos, we usually toss ones where people are looking away from the camera, have unflattering or unhappy expressions on their faces (except when they’re trying to be silly), have nasty red-eye or have their eyes closed altogether. We usually take two or three photos of people in case any of these unfavorable conditions occur, that way there is a higher chance that at least one out of the set will be good. If not, we sometimes keep the least bad of the set so as not to cut the people out completely.
Next, Steve will select a set of the best photos by taking one from each set of similar photos. For example, in our June edition this year we had selected close to 600 good photos from Calgary Pride. These ones get set aside from the originals, and undergo color adjustments and a gauntlet of filters to prepare them for print. People often joke about us airbrushing photos - either that they need it, or that we’ve done it to make them look better. Unless you’re on the cover we really don’t have time to do manual touch-ups, however the filters we use can sometimes smooth enough to give an airbrushed effect.
Finally, we lay out the photo section in the magazine itself. We have limited space to do this, and the photo sections are sometimes our crumple room when we can’t fit articles or ads. We take into account the number of pages that we have available for each section, and allocate space based on the quantity of photos set aside from each event (but not more than a two page spread for a single event). We then have to take a subset of the good photos based on what we think we can fit reasonably (ie. without making photos the size of postage stamps): usually two vertical photos for every horizontal photo. These are chosen from a thumbnail inventory, and we look for photos that appear the most different from one another. We often can’t tell who is in a photo until we place it on the magazine page – but we typically catch doubles of people and try to include as many different faces. So in the case of Calgary Pride, only 42 out of those 600 photos could be published.
These sections are typically the last thing in the magazine that we lay out. When it is late at night and our deadline is getting tight, sadly we often don’t clue in that we might be missing a photo of someone who really wanted to be in the magazine. Even so, we really can’t afford to be farting and fanning around with the photo selections for too long – it takes enough effort to lay it out the first time.
So why didn’t that one particular picture make it? Well, it could have been deleted because the photo didn’t turn out, or it might have been missed in the photo selection, or it might not have fit in the magazine layout. Suffice it to say that our photo choices are not really choices – they are mostly luck of the draw, so don’t take it personally if you didn’t make it into the magazine this month. There’s always next month, and the only thing you can do is make sure you get photographed!
Now, the other thing I want to mention about photos is regarding those who ask us to send them particular ones. The worst possible request is to ask us to send all the photos that we have of them personally, or from events in their establishment or put on by their organization. You have to realize that we keep all of the photos that aren’t eliminated in the first sorting step, and we have them going back to 2000 (even before the magazine started). To do a manual search through them all is just…well, let’s say impossible. Even if you ask us while we’re taking the photographs, we don’t look through them until the end of the month. So that’s why photo requests can be hit and miss. I ask anyone who wants particular photos to send me their request by E-mail, with the date(s) of the event(s) if possible. Some I’ve been able to fulfill right away, but I do keep a list of others, waiting for that day I happen to come across the photos that they wanted.
I recently completed custom-built software to help us manage this large photo collection. Not only does it help us sort through the photos faster, but it also lets us database and tag them with a number of useful classifications: city, venue, organization, event, and even people that are in them. The cool part is that this system will tie in with our new online photo gallery that we hope to launch within the next month. Once that is available, you won’t have to wait on us any more! But there is still a lot of work to do as we must go back and classify all of our past photos before they can become available. Past photos will probably go on in waves, while recent photos won’t become available until a month after they have been taken – we still want you to pick up the magazine after all!

November - 4th Anniversary Edition
It’s only two months away! This November marks the magazine’s fourth year in operation, and the month after, our 50th edition! Personally we can’t believe that we will have done the magazine for 50 straight – er, rather gaily continuous months. Going to press can be a pretty intense experience, so doing it 50 times is a milestone of commitment and determination. We encourage our advertisers to take advantage of these two special months, as they will both be excellent opportunities for exposure.
We want to hear what YOU have to say about the topics in this article, and any other articles in our magazine. Visit the chat forums at www.gaycalgary.com and write your heart out! Or write us a letter to the publisher by E-mailing publisher@gaycalgary.com, and we may respond to it in the magazine!