"Synergy" describes the effect where two or more things working in unison become greater than the sum of their parts.  When you encounter a problem that is beyond your abilities, the solution is often to team up with others that have a similar goal.  This usually creates an entity – a team, or a community – that can pool its strengths, cover its weaknesses, and accomplish more in less time than any one person could.

But a team that can’t find a way to work together has the opposite effect.  Members start to become a hindrance to one another, and they come to the sad realization that they might get more done on their own.  If that is the case it defeats the purpose of having a team - there is no point in staying together.  A team that magnifies its weaknesses is destined to fail, disband, and leave everyone dissatisfied that nothing has changed.  The individuals may continue trying to accomplish the goal on their own, but they are likely wasting time and effort by duplicating their efforts.

In our community we have many different teams: businesses, non-profit groups, special interest clubs, sporting teams, social groups, support groups, committees, bands, performing groups, cliques, friends, and the list goes on.  They all exist for different reasons, and similar groups can vary within the same category depending on how successful or cohesive they are.  Of course the gay community itself can be considered a group in a broader sense...though with the problems we see at times, we worry about the direction this group is heading.

The way I see it, a member is to a group what a group is to the community.  If members can’t work together, then there is no group.  And similarly, if groups can’t work together, then there is no community.  A single group can no more call itself the community than a single person can call themselves a group.  A community forms when two or more groups find a way to work symbiotically with one another and still maintain their autonomy.

One has to remember that not all people can work with one another.  It’s just a fact of life that personalities clash, time and resources are limited, politics and red-tape prevent us from meshing with one another.  What results is the formation of several disjoint communities, each having a different and limited view of the greater picture – THE community.  The highly connected groups will have a broader view than those that are orphaned, but nobody can ever hope to have a complete one.  To believe otherwise is to deny the existence of anything outside of your sphere of knowledge – basically to be closed-minded.

For example, at a recent annual general meeting for a non-profit support group, an outgoing board member commented that she did not see the value in reaching out to the clientele of Calgary’s gay bars because the people are "just a bunch of alcoholics and drug users."  Certainly the absence of this closed-minded board member can only be an asset to a group that strives for acceptance and open-mindedness.  To dismiss an untouched cross section of people who could benefit from your support services is folly, as much as it is to believe that the bars are the only safe place for gay people to go.

I bring this up as a reminder to everyone the precarious balance of group dynamics.  This topic is on my mind because I am noticing an increasing number of gay groups struggling to serve their purpose, and not recognizing the fact that they need the cooperation of others to get them there.  Some of these groups don’t realize that their internal turmoil is taking away from their purpose for existing; others work like a well oiled machine, but still can’t reach their goals.  Both are equally unhappy, and wondering why.  Each one is sick to death of fighting, but they fold their arms and stubbornly say "if the other guys want peace, they can come to me and apologize."  Unfortunately the world cannot work that way, because if nobody is willing to make the first move - take a leap of faith - then we reach a deadlock.

If it means being the first one to apologize, even if you feel that they have done more to wrong you; if it means accepting an act of kindness in lieu of an explicit apology; if it means biting your tongue and hearing them through to the end before trying to defend yourself; if it means giving them the benefit of the doubt and a chance to correct things instead of automatically launching a counter attack; if it means privately writing them a long letter to describe your side of the story and why you are so angry; if it means reading a long letter and putting yourself in their shoes to understand why they are so angry; if it means agreeing to both start with a clean slate instead of dragging up mistakes from the past – then why can’t we just do it?  Conceding doesn’t show weakness, apologizing doesn’t mean that you were the only one in the wrong, and receiving an apology often means you owe one in return.

If the people and groups in the gay world want to stop fighting and start being a cohesive, strong, prosperous, happy community, then something’s gotta give.  In the meantime nothing is going to happen while everyone is waiting for everyone else to change.

These are cards we keep up our sleeve for times of injustice: the gay card, the race card, and the gender card.  They are used as a challenge, to point out that a person’s treatment of you, as a historically marginalized group, has come about because of prejudice.  It is NOT something to be taken lightly however, because using it in inappropriate situations can marginalize others, and even encourage prejudice in individuals where prejudice did not exist before.

Jane works at a bank.  She frequently shows up late for work, spends an excessive amount of time chatting with her friends and family on the telephone, and recently she misfiled some paperwork that caused a large sum of a customer’s money to go missing.  Jane doesn’t want to accept responsibility for her mistake, and shows no remorse for the trouble that she has caused the bank and one of its customers.  Jane’s boss John would be fully justified to fire her on these grounds.  It has nothing to do with the fact that she’s a woman – Mary is a valued employee at this bank.  It has nothing to do with the fact that she is Mexican; Luca has made a few mistakes in the past, but she has apologized and made certain that she is more careful.  It has nothing to do with the fact that Jane is a Lesbian, because half of the staff at this bank are gay.

But purely out of spite, Jane plays the victim card.  "I’m only being fired because and I’m a woman of color."  "John is only firing me because I’m a Lesbian and I’m not interested in sleeping with him to get a promotion." "I’m sick of all these oppressive white males in upper management who only want to keep us Mexicans down."

By Jane making all of these false accusations about why she was fired, she has crossed a line – a BIG line – and if she is truly concerned about gender, race, and orientation issues, she has just done the worst kind of damage possible to her cause.  If Jane tells people that she was fired because she is Mexican, when in actual fact she was fired because she, as an individual, is lazy and careless, then Jane has just implied that all Mexicans are lazy and careless.  See how it works?

Luca is due for a promotion, but Jane has just implied that she had to sleep with John to get it – not because she is a hard worker who deserves it.  Little does Jane know that John’s wife is African-American, and being called a racist has sent him into deep turmoil as he questions whether it is true or not.  With such a question nagging in the back of his mind, John may actually start treating people of color differently, favoring them above white people, which is equally unfair.

The point is that playing the victim card is like throwing Napalm – you may be targeting one person, but you have little control of the peripheral damage.  You most certainly will hurt people that you didn’t intend to, and it will leave large, ugly scars.

It would be an understatement to say that April was a douzie.  Between the week of OutGames events and the week of events surrounding the ISCCA Coronation, Steve and I probably had our hands fuller than they have ever been in the past.

To get the April edition out in time for the OutGames we pushed our press deadline a little earlier than normal.  The Vagina Monologues happened at the end of March, so we haven’t been able to talk about them or print photographs until now.  The event was another huge success – a great deal of fun and laughter for a good cause.  This year our favorite vagina moniker was "The Wicked Wedge".

Obviously the OutRights Conference, OutFest, and Western Cup XXV were a major accomplishment for Calgary.  Between the two of us, Steve and I were able to make it out to the majority of events and competitions, snapping photos of our thespians and athletes in action.  We thought it was really neat that we ended up becoming the "official photographer" for Lily Tomlin at the after-party following her stage performance.  Luckily we managed to get her to sign her half of the March magazine cover before she was whisked off.

Being the first city to assemble this event, there were naturally a couple of hitches.  As the only local gay media sponsor, GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine pushed to publish an unofficial events guide, however the event schedules were not available to us in time for press.  In fact, the event schedules came out mere days before the events themselves, and remained exclusive to the official guides produced by the OutGames.

This would have been fine, except many of the central gay businesses did not receive copies of these program guides until the week was mostly over, and little information was available on the official OutGames website to compensate for this.  As a result, many people that wanted to be a part of this historical event were left in the dark, and as their usual source of gay community information, we were the first ones to hear the complaints about it.  We did our best to make sure those complaints reached the appropriate organizers, but there was little more that we could do.  Those in charge of the OutGames have commented that, despite the number of people who did not attend, the event still appears to have broken even.  However the official numbers are yet to be released.

Empress 31 Dyna Myte and Emperor 31 Wolfgang made history this month when they announced that their fundraising efforts through the ISCCA over the past year had totaled over $40,000!  This beats the Calgary Court’s previously standing record of $28,000.  Of this money, over $10,000 has gone to the SHARP Foundation to support two of Calgary’s AIDS Hospices.  Fred Udey accepted a check for $10,000 on behalf of the Children’s Wish Foundation.  The remainder was divided between Artists for Quality of Life (in support of AIDS Calgary’s Positive Living Lunch Program), AGAPE Manor, and others.

As we’ve already expressed so many times over the past month, we are extremely proud of Dyna Myte and Wolfgang.  In our protocol speech we wrote, "It would be an understatement to say that you exceeded everyone’s expectations this year, especially since you surpassed even your own.  But the success of your reign isn’t just measured by the amount of funds you raised for charity.  It can also be seen in how your efforts rallied the community together for a common cause.  Even if just for a moment, you made us all rise above the politics and the hard feelings to bring about something good in the world.  If we can all hold on to that moment, there is hope for us yet."

I talked about the Dirty Bird Awards in my last publisher’s column, explaining how it seemed so long ago being at the very beginning of the month.  Though I still remembered, unfortunately Steve completely missed publishing photos from the event.  Thus, the photos are appearing in this month’s magazine, with this sincere apology to the Calgary Eagle.  Thanks for being such good sports about it!

Also, last month’s article on Justin and David Bike Canada for Kidney featured the wrong website address.  The correct address is www.bikecanadaforkidney.com, where you can check on their progress over the next 4 months, and even make donations.

Lorrie and Michele have announced that they are retiring as owners of Money Pennies, and already the rumor mill has grand stories of them moving to foreign countries and opening up a new "Dinero Pesos".  Well...no.  We interviewed them about their plans, and who the new owners will be.  Find out more on page 23.

After opening a new store location in Edmonton’s goth/punk club New City, B&D Emporium has announced that they are moving out of their old location below Express Video and Steamworks.  The new location for their express store is 10081 Jasper Ave.  They will be having a liquidation sale until the old store closes on May 19th.

GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine will once again be publishing an Event Guide for Gay Pride in Calgary; however, this year we will also be including event information for Edmonton as well!

Currently we are the only gay media sponsor of Gay Pride in either city.  As such, our magazines will be available at all Pride events and venues in both cities, as we cover these events to their full extent.