It’s February, the much acclaimed month of love. With Stephen Harper now the new Prime Minister of Canada, Valentine’s Days to follow might not be looking so rosy red for us homosexuals. With the highly publicized stance of the Conservative Party on Gay Marriage, it’s no small wonder so many couples are taking the plunge just in case this freedom is taken away from us again. In fact, we have articles on Solsourced Weddings and Weddings My Way, two marriage commissioners in Calgary that would gladly help you tie the knot, whether you want a non-denominational or more spiritual focus for your union.
Of course we’re not endorsing that you should get married just because of Mr. Harper’s threat. Steve and I have been together for 4 years and marriage is a certainty on our horizon, it’s only a matter of finding a calm period in our lives to do so. We have chosen not to rush to it – we will do it on our own time regardless of what Mr. Harper says we can or can’t do. Personally I’m confident that this will not even be an issue when the time comes – I have faith in Canada, and better yet, I have faith in the common sense of the people in Canada to make the right decision. Failing all that, I have confidence that the people who first pushed gay marriage forward will be able to pull it off again, and of course we’ll be there to do our part in supporting them. Easy go, easy come.
This month we’re excited to see our writer Aly Velji competing on the new season of HGTV’s Design Superstar Challenge! He invites everyone to come and join him for the 7:00pm show every Monday night at the Twisted Element. See the ad on page 11 for more information.
Bar Banter
The Calgary Eagle is celebrating their 4th anniversary this month! Go down and celebrate with them on February 17th. We asked them to talk a little bit about their experience over the past years as a Letter to the Publisher, which we have printed on page 54.
Money-Pennies recently had a fundraiser for one of their former staff, Boo Boo. Sadly she has been diagnosed with cancer, and the amazing $16,000 they raised (probably some kind of record) will be going toward keeping her financially afloat after the expensive medical costs for her treatment. If this is a guideline for how much it takes for a single person, I can only imagine how much money organizations like SHARP foundation need in order to survive.
Speaking of the SHARP Foundation, the Texas Lounge is hosting a fundraiser for Beswick House. You can buy hearts for $1 each, which function as a ticket for the prize draws on February 14th. Hearts are available up until that date, and the prizes you can win are phenomenal! Check out their ad on page 7.
Pulse shut down in the middle of last month, taking down Arena, Loading Dock, and Victoria’s Restaurant with them. It’s sad to see 23 years of gay space possibly lost forever. Predictably, this lead to another new slough of rumours. The old “building being torn down” rumor resurfaced, and once again we confirmed from the source that it has no grounds whatsoever. Come on people, how many times are we going to fall for this one? Goliath’s and the Texas lounge, which as you know are in no way associated with the guys upstairs, are still going strong with no plans of that changing any time soon. Myth busted.
Reader’s Choice Survey
No, it’s not over yet! We had our Earlybird draw last month, but our grand prize draw isn’t until February 25th. If you haven’t filled it out yet, there’s still plenty of time. Or, if you’ve already done it and you didn’t win any of the Earlybird prizes, you’re still eligible for the grand prize draw. January’s issue will continue to be available everywhere that there’s a ballot box, including Timothy’s Coffee Shop at 1610 10th St SW, which we accidentally excluded from our list last month.
We decided on a more hands-on approach this time around, taking the time to visit each one of Calgary’s gay bars before the Earlybird draw to encourage patrons to vote for their favorites. We’ll be doing it a second time closer to the final draw.
From what we’ve seen of the surveys so far, there seem to be some disappointing answers to our open-ended questions. For instance, very few people have been able to name anyone for our volunteer nomination. Our community is filled with volunteers – you couldn’t throw a football across many of our gay bars without hitting one - but so few people seem to be aware of that fact.
At the same time, we were flattered by those who consider our devotion to photographing gay events in the Calgary community as volunteer work. We hadn’t really thought about it that way, but in essence we don’t get paid for that work whatsoever. It’s certainly nice to see people’s appreciation for that.
Alongside of the surveys, our GayCalgary.com pens made a debut this month. We wanted to give people something useful that they can take home, or keep with them in their pockets. If there aren’t any left at the bars, you can ask us for one the next time you see us out and about, we’ll probably be able to rustle one up.
Life or Meth
The Life or Meth poster campaign that we’ve been disseminating in Calgary has been taken up by most of our gay bars, and many other gay businesses. We’ve decided to branch out further however. We are now offering posters to any gay business or organization across Canada upon request, so contact us if you’re interested in helping fight against the Crystal Meth epidemic by raising awareness.
On another note, we apologize to anyone named “Tina” that might be taking offense to the Life or Meth posters – we are not trying to say that people should be trying to “break free from your grip,” or that you “destroy the life and soul of the party”. Unfortunately “Tina” is the street name that the drug has been given…so don’t take it personally!
GayCalgary.com News
We’re tired of receiving urgent and important press releases, events listings, and other time-sensitive news after we’ve gone to press. In our elections article last month, Stephen Harper was the only Conservative to respond to our survey…a day after we’d gone to press. Obviously, information like this would be completely stale if we saved it for the next issue. That is why we are planning to launch the GayCalgary.com Supplementary Edition to help get these things out in a timely fashion. So sign up online to receive E-mails with these pertinent details as they develop.
This month, the Pride Centre of Edmonton submitted a number of events for us to print for the Edmonton area. Currently Edmonton’s gay community is experiencing a bit of a void in their print industry. Many of their Edmonton-specific gay magazines have either folded or become online-only, so they have turned to us I suppose as the next best thing in print out there. We’re happy to help out our big sister city. As of yet we don’t know if this will be a permanent fixture, but we’ll see what the future holds.
Lastly, we were pretty amused this month to hear other publications claiming that they are “Calgary’s leading magazine for the Gay & Lesbian community.” This is certainly news to us because we know that GayCalgary.com Magazine is still the ONLY magazine specifically for Calgary’s Gay & Lesbian community. But if you don’t believe us, a simple comparison would suffice. For one, we are the only gay magazine available in all of the gay bars and clubs in Calgary, but there’s a lot more to it than that. We think it’s fair to let our common readers and advertisers draw their own conclusions, because as they say, the proof is in the pudding.
If you’re looking rather to express your opinion, write a letter to the publisher by E-mailing Publisher@gaycalgary.com. If you’ve got something good to say about someone or something, then that’s awesome! If you’ve got something bad to say about someone or something…well, just try to keep those claws sheathed!
