I’ve been watching and photographing Drag Shows since I first met Steve. Before I understood what it was all about, I was a little put off by his apparent interest in men wearing dresses. It took nearly a year of periodic exposure to drag shows before I began to appreciate them for their entertainment value. I suppose one needs to collect enough memories of the hard-hitting numbers, rather than the more transient weekly ones, to really get into the right mindset. Admittedly, I enjoyed some of the outrageously crude numbers by Selma Body (“Like A Virgin”, “I Keep a Piece of You”) and Candy Cummings (“C is for Cookie”) on the Detours stage before I appreciated the more classical styles of queens like Nina, Voodoo, Carly, and Kricket.

My first Coronation was somewhat confusing. I remember heading to the Days Inn after a final exam, to join Steve who was in the process of photographing and videotaping (using a tripod) so I didn’t have much to do but stand and watch the equipment, and of course, the show. I remember that year was an Egyptian theme with some reference to Stargate - and one performance sticks out in my mind for the fact that the performer was carried onstage inside a sarcophagus. I wasn’t sure how to act around the queens in crowns who introduced themselves to me. I ended up kissing a few of them on the hand, thinking it was customary to do so after seeing someone else doing it. I’m sure none objected, I just felt a little silly when I later realized it wasn’t necessary, and perhaps a little flirtatious.

Fast forward through nearly 7 years of being purely an observer and supporter of the drag scene, to the Tough Drag show the night after this year’s Coronation. Both Steve and I were exhausted and I suppose I must have been in a particularly malleable mood because when Dion Boink approached me with the idea, my answer was NOT a flat-out “no” as Steve’s was.

Steve and I have never really had the desire to do drag. We like our beards and body hair, and we deem any interruption of its presence to be completely unacceptable. Nevertheless, we had still planned out what our drag names would be, should either of us ever get roped into drag for a rare occasion. We told ourselves that we’d only do this for some sort of big fundraiser, but this night I was feeling like doing something crazy.

The premise of tough drag meant that I could perform without any preparation al a razor. Of course I still had a couple of concerns. My first, of actually getting into drag, was taken care of by Makayla (Steve R.) who graciously offered to do the makeup and lend me clothes and a wig. By gracious, I probably mean eager to help me make a fool of myself (wink). My next was having a song to perform that I knew well enough, which Makayla helped me find in her CD collection. Once I knew those were taken care of, I had no more excuses.

It all happened so fast - I had waffled long enough and show time was approaching. Makayla rushed to get my face painted in a mere 10 minutes, got me into a dress (ironically the same one worn by Vadge The Bucket only a month ago…that’s Karma for you) with balloons for breasts, and a wild bushy wig. If you thought socks and sandals was a bad combination, try socks and heels. I believed him when he told me I might be less nervous if I didn’t look at myself until after I had performed. Indeed I would later discover that I looked like some demented peppy prostitute, fresh out of a Ponoka mental institution. As train wrecks go, I was spectacular, but that was exactly the point of tough drag.

I hobbled out of the back room, and went on a tour of the bar to see people’s reactions. Naturally I tried to plant a big kiss on my Steve but he held me off at an arm’s distance, using the excuse that he didn’t want to get lipstick on him. I can’t say that wearing a dress felt strange…if anything it was like wearing a bathrobe. The heels were a little uncomfortable, but I got the hang of them pretty quick by focusing on walking on my toes.

My number came closer to the end of the drag show. I sat on the sidelines, waiting, my mind racing. Makayla checked a couple of times to make sure I wasn’t freaking out. The strange drunken guy sitting beside me kept wanting to shake my hand, and even grabbed my ass as I got up at one point - what the hell! I watched the numbers ahead of me go by, having a good laugh as Emperor Joey did a spot-on impression of Empress Bianca. Eventually my turn came, as they announced the debut of “Tara Hymen”, performing Britney Speers’ hit song “Toxic”!

People began laughing almost immediately, as I attempted to run (hobbled frantically) up onto the stage. But in this case I didn’t find the laugher intimidating whatsoever – in fact, it only encouraged me. I like making people laugh sometimes with my writing, so it felt gratifying. As I swayed and mouthed the song, ideas started coming to me and I went along with them, channeling the psychotic and undignified Britney that we all know and love to make fun of. I raised my dress in reference to her well known beaver shot, and during the interlude I pretended to shave my head, dropping the wig to the ground, then proceeding to spazz out so much that I popped my right breast somewhat intentionally. After adjusting my left breast to the center to serve as a uni-boob, I accepted tips, then popped the last balloon as the song came to a close. The audience roared with laughter, and what humored me was that Steve heard people commenting about how I must have practiced all of this ahead of time. I left the stage somewhat relieved that it was over, with close to $20 worth of bills and coins clutched in the death grip that was my left hand. Just about everyone that I encountered, from the stage to the back room, had praise for me.

I got back into my regular running shoes, returned the wig, but left the dress on for the remainder of the show. At the end, Empress Bianca called all of the performers up, but much to my surprise she announced me as the winner! Not realizing it had been a competition, I was so dazed that I didn’t pay attention to what I had won until Dion explained to me that I had just received an honourary title from the ISCCA. I finally got rid of the tips I was clutching, donating them back to the organization, and thanked Bianca and Joey.

Even long after I was out of face and back into my boy clothes, people I had never seen before at the Eagle were shaking my hand and wanting to talk to me. The whole experience left me with an ego high that lingered for the next several days, much like the grating taste of makeup at the back of my throat.

After observing drag for so long, it took an experience like this to help me finally understand how someone might get hooked on it in the first place. It’s definitely not for the “thrill” of wearing women’s clothes as mainstream thinking tends to believe. It’s a way to let loose, to become famous and popular within the gay community, and possibly make a little money in tips while doing it. People are so appreciative of what you do that it makes you feel extremely good about yourself, but I can also see how easy it might be to let it all go to your head.

Much to Steve’s relief, Tara Hymen will definitely not be making regular appearances, although that night has unquestionably prodded at the long dormant side of me that enjoyed Drama class back in high school. I’ve caught myself idly practicing dance moves, and imagining what songs I might do were I ever required to perform again. Oh god, we created a monster!

April 2009

Right near the beginning of the month was the Taboo Sex Show in Red Deer. Though we didn’t have a booth in place, we still had arranged with the organizers to have our magazines available. We hadn’t intended to go up and visit the show in person, but the opportunity presented itself. I have to say, about every second guy in Red Deer was super hot in a blue-collar sort of way. We definitely need to visit there more often!

It was slightly bittersweet that Apollo Western Cup, with only four sports, was a little easier for us to cover this year. Instead of splitting up, Steve and I spread the task out over the two days, visiting each sporting event together and photographing from different angles. The food was fabulous at the Friday dinner, and the Saturday dance in the Westin ballroom was its usual popular draw for the whole community.

The very next week we were back at the hotel for the ISCCA Coronation. After our experiences with past venues, I have to say that the staff and management of the Westin were amazingly helpful and accommodating. As we got our video equipment set up, and our big screen projector to broadcast the video footage, the Westin took care of our every need. During the event, they even specially delivered dinner to us at the platform where we were situated. I can’t speak for the ISCCA but I’m pretty certain they were equally happy with their new venue.

While the venue was originally expecting to provide seating for 200 attendees, the stellar ticket sales tipped organizers off that they needed room for more, and so seating and food for an additional 50 people was added at the last minute. Despite this upsizing, as the night went on, the ISCCA was forced to sell standing room tickets to many more individuals who came to attend. It was the largest crowd that the ISCCA has seen out for a Coronation in many years.

In the second set, ISCCA President Neal DeWitt announced that the year’s fundraising total came to $35,000. He went further to put into perspective the difference that the ISCCA makes in the community by pointing out that the organization has, over the last 3 years, given away a grand total of $102,000 toward their various charities.

As expected, Empress Nina and Emperor Michael had emotional step downs. Nina overcame a lot of obstacles this past year, and garnered a great deal of support from our own city and others. Michael became Emperor when Ashley Carmichael needed to step down for health reasons, and he certainly rose to the challenge and filled his new position well.

At the end of the night, the newly elected Emperor and Empress were announced to be Joey Hailey and Bianca LaBouche. At the Victory Brunch the next morning, they proclaimed the reign of “Hungarian Sausage and Italian Meatballs,” along with the theme for their Coronation next year, “Tea with Musolini”.

The voting results were also revealed: a total turnout of 247 voters. As the only candidate for Emperor, Joey Hailey received 196 yes votes and 33 no votes. Bianca LaBouche won with 91 votes, by a reasonable margin over Malibu Stacey with 71 votes. Argintina Hailey-Santos and Onyx Myte trailed the other two candidates.

This year for the first time I had enough hard drive space on my computer to download and prepare the over 7 hours of footage from the Coronation so that performers and attendees can relive the experience. I have split the night by set, over four DVDs with custom Coronation 33 themed menus, and chaptered the footage by performer to make it easier to jump right to the ones you want to see. The set will come with custom DVD labels and jewel case inserts to make it all pretty. Once I have determined the cost for materials, we will be selling the four-disc sets, with a portion of the proceeds going back to the ISCCA. If you are interested in purchasing a copy, we are currently collecting names and phone numbers on a waiting list, so please contact us by phone, E-mail, or Facebook.

This Month

We have a very packed edition for you this month, and we’ve needed to give a couple of our regular features a rest to make room for slightly more time sensitive articles. We are also trying something new by putting a small selection of articles on our website only, as they become available over the course of the month. For now they will appear in the regular article listing when you visit the Magazine page, but marked with a special icon to distinguish them from regular print articles.

Aside from the usual monthly events, the Fairytales International Queer Diversity Film Festival is the big happening for May, even though it is right at the end (May 28th – June 6th). For the first time we’re publishing a full movie guide, which can be found on page 51. There is also a big leather/fetish weekend planned for June 5th and 6th here in Calgary – read more about it on page 26.

As if that early June weekend wasn’t busy enough, Prism in Edmonton is also celebrating their first anniversary under new ownership, on Saturday June 6th – congrats Deborah and Tracy!

This month’s cover features the cast of Laramie Project, with director Barry Gagliardi. The symbolism may have been slightly lost due to the angle of the shot, but the group is standing on a train track that comes to abrupt end, alongside other tracks that continue going. It was a pretty exciting cover shoot, albeit short and sweet. We got a number of other amazing shots that sadly wouldn’t fit on our cover, so we’ve included them with the online article instead. You can read more about the production on page 27.

Where’s the Pre-Pride Guide?

For the past several years we have published a pre-pride guide in our May edition to give Pride-goers event information well in advance. However, with the move of Calgary’s event to September, it no longer makes sense to publish such a guide as we cannot conveniently group Edmonton and Calgary Pride information together in one edition. But this certainly hasn’t slowed us down from being involved!

Readers and advertisers make note that information for Edmonton Pride (June 12th – 21st) and Lethbridge Pride (June 12th – 14th) will be published in the June edition, along with ARGRA Rodeo events. Incidentally, this will be the first time Lethbridge Pride has engaged in a weekend-long festival! Then, our magazine will host the official Pride Calgary Pride Guide in the August edition so that the information is available well in advance of September 5th and 6th. This is actually good news for us because our quietest edition of the year will now be packed with Calgary Pride, Calgary/Edmonton Fringe, and ISCWR coverage. Coincidentally we are also doing some minor cross-promotion with Saskatoon Pride this year, which will be occurring from June 7th to 13th.

As sponsors of all of these organizations, our magazines will be prevalently available at all major events. So these two editions are great opportunities for advertisers to reach an audience that may not come out any other time of year.

Trans Healthcare

The big news this past month has been about changes to Alberta Health Care coverage that now excludes gender reassignment surgeries. Trans individuals are rightly upset by this development, as many would be unable to afford the procedures themselves, and some may be left halfway to completing their sex change. We have a number of writers weighing in on the issue in this edition.

Here in Calgary, to add insult to injury, many businesses have experienced a rash of harassing voicemails containing some pretty ugly and misguided hate speech on the topic. In one message that I heard, which appeared to be a pre-recorded message, the individual was condemning us “faggots” for using government money toward this “perversion”. Okay, I’m confused. So these extremists don’t want us to be gay, don’t want same sex couples to be able to marry, and yet they balk when it comes to helping pay for trans individuals to go through this process in pursuit of (in many cases) a heterosexual lifestyle – to in essence NOT be “faggots” any more. Once again, it’s obvious that such shit-for-brains individuals don’t really care about right or wrong, even by their own standards. They are just looking for someone to kick in the ribs while they’re already down, and as usual, the already disenfranchised GLBT community is an easy target.

However, the outpouring of dissatisfaction on the government’s decision, due to the impact on Trans folk, is already making an impact - it has even received attention from the Oprah show! The hope is that the government will see that this matter is not to be taken lightly, and reconsider.

Anyone that may have received one or more of these hateful voicemails or phone calls are encouraged to add to the case that has been filed with the Calgary Police, under report number 48076.

Sandra Casey

Friends and family of Sandra Casey, who was killed in a hit and run incident this past January, were relieved to find out that the man responsible, Stavros Costoulas, had officially entered a guilty plea. This means that justice can be served swiftly, rather than being dragged out over the course of years. He will be sentenced on July 9, 2009.

In a message to the members of Sandra’s memorial Facebook group, her wife Deb Boniface said, “I will be there on this day, as no doubt a lot of her friends and family will be. On this day I am able to read a Victims Impact Statement. I hope some of you will share in your feelings into this crime, so that the judge knows just how this death has had its impact.”

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