Where has the time gone? When I was a child, a year seemed like a very long time but now, this year in particular has positively zoomed by. I remember what I was doing last November as if it were yesterday – scary enough, to some degree I even remember writing the publisher’s column back then. Time flies when you’re working hard just as much as it does when you’re having fun. While running GayCalgary.com Magazine, Steve and I can say that we’ve gotten a big share of both.
Similar to climbing a mountain, in life it’s customary to take a moment to look back when you reach a major milestone. To appreciate the view is to reflect on how much you have grown, both personally and professionally. In my case, I hold a lot of skill-based duties: graphic design, writing, editing, and website design. The magazine has helped me to hone these far beyond what I ever thought I was capable of.
I remember writing articles not too long ago about my being shy, but ironically enough the magazine has helped me make big strides on a social level too. Last year Steve needed me to photograph an ARGRA Dance because he was covering another conflicting event in the city. It was my first time doing photography for the magazine and although I had seen him do it hundreds of times I was terrified to approach anyone, even people that I knew. This Halloween, Steve was in Edmonton covering the events up there while I was doing the same in Calgary, and I noticed how once I get the ball rolling, my hesitation is all but gone. In a way, taking photos has become an ice-breaker for an introvert like me, and I’ve befriended a number of people this way. Steve has told me this was one reason he photographed events at some of the bars before the magazine started, as believe it or not he has been through a stage where he felt awkward trying to meet new people too.
This Month
This month we felt that we wanted to do something very special to further boost the popularity of our magazine online, and offer our advertisers a very unique new way of reaching gay readers. We’ve done some looking around, and believe we are perhaps the first publication in Canada (possibly North America), gay or straight, to make use of these features that have been available in Adobe Acrobat for the past 5 years or so.
Look for streaming VIDEO CLIPS and SOUND BYTES embedded right in the PDF that you download from our website each month! Advertisers can now have video commercials appear online, in conjunction with their conventional print advertising that appears in the hard copies of the magazine. We have also been taking short video clips of drag shows and other events while we were photographing, so several photographs in this issue can invoke these clips when clicked. In the music review you can now preview select tracks from some of the CDs that I write about.
The neat part is that because all of this video and audio is streamed from our servers, the PDF file is not any larger a download than it usually is. Naturally the streaming content cannot be viewed when on a machine that doesn’t have an internet connection, but in that case readers will just default back to what they would normally see in a printed copy.
We were very proud of the outstanding performance by Nina, Selma and Jaylee when they performed Madonna’s “Vogue” at the coronation earlier this year. As many people who missed it (and those who would love to see it again) have asked to see the video, we decided to include the clip with Nina’s column this month as a fun bonus.
You may also notice that our logo on the front cover has an addition to it. As we have been receiving more acceptance, support, readership and content from the Edmonton gay community, we deemed it necessary to reflect that fact in our title. At the same time…we like our name and our logo. At our inception many commented “GayCalgary.com Magazine is too long, it has too many syllables,” but innumerable others praised us for the fact that it explains beyond a doubt what our magazine is about. It would be stupid for us to let this name, and 11 years of using it, go down the drain in favor of a snazzy but arbitrary title. We promised ourselves that no matter what, we would never rename the magazine. So now calling ourselves “GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine” was the most reasonable compromise we could find. It does become more of a mouthful…but isn’t a mouthful a good thing? Okay fine, if you have to shorten it you can stick with the moniker that you’ve always preferred using, or a cool half-acronym like “GC&E Magazine.” Legally our business name is still GayCalgary.com Magazine, but there is a degree of flexibility to the aliases that you can register.
As future expansion goes, I doubt this is really feasible for us without major structural change to the way we run our business. Steve and I like keeping the magazine well grounded and close to the people, which wouldn’t be possible if we got much bigger. Edmonton isn’t far from us, and we can afford the time and money to send one of us up there on an interval. Canada-wide coverage is out of the question, though we continue to distribute our magazines in every province across the country, and don’t say no to advertisers from these areas. Alberta would be the upper bound for us – any more and we may start pulling out our hair.
The cover this month shows Bryce, Johnathan and Ralf – three generations that can find a way to coexist at the same hangouts and events. In the straight world there is a lot of segregation between generations, and often people of one age will prefer to be around those that are relatively the same. Although this phenomenon is still visible in our own community, we stick together because of our sexual orientation. As a result, it seems like we have a lot more people without reservation about crossing the age line for friendships and relationships. Even Steve and I have a nine year age gap between us, but we get along because our personalities and maturities are able to meet somewhere in the middle.
Lastly, we would like to welcome our new writer, Kaitlyn Hatch, who just started this month. I worked with Kaitlyn in the past to put together the Safety Under the Rainbow website (www.safetyrainbow.com) – she has been a very active and community-minded individual, the likes of which is rarely seen for someone her age. She was featured on our August 2006 cover, with an article about herself and the various community projects she has on the go. You may remember her from the Fake Moustache drag king shows put together by her parent organization Miscellaneous Youth Network. To say the least, we are excited to have her on board! She may be young but she brings a lot of knowledge and experience from the realm of queer youth, and non-profit support agencies.
Last Month
I haven’t always written the publisher’s column; when the magazine first started it was up to Steve to write it. Well…Steve doesn’t exactly have the best English skills and he can sound a bit scatter-brained. In August of 2004 I began writing the column on both our behalves, and by June of 2005 I was listed as sole author. Over the last year I have talked from my own perspective, but Steve still offers a great deal of input about what I should mention. I have received the occasional praise for this work, but nothing compared to the response I got from my column last month!
If you recall, I wrote about the “Dooms-gay Prophecies” – how the rumor mill across Canada is spinning out of control about the closure of gay bars in Calgary, and how this has the potential of causing the very thing that everyone fears to come true. Some otherwise respectable writers have been buying into this story and have become a tool for further fear mongering. Aside from Steve being quoted as the overly-optimistic skeptic in some of these articles, we may have been one of the first publications to denounce this theory, and offer a different explanation for the phenomena that many were taking to foretell the end of the gay community. For the amount of praise I received from individuals in Calgary this month, I get the feeling my article must have made a lot of sense! Just about every time Steve and I were out this month, at least one person was coming up to us and saying “great column this month, that’s so true!” I just hope it was enough to empower our readers to help prevent the boulder of bullshit from gaining any more momentum - preventing further damage to Calgary’s reputation.

Bar Banter
This month, online escort and recent Outlooks cover model Jamal and his sisters had to be forcibly removed from the premises of Twisted Element after allegedly instigating a bar brawl. Several staff members were injured attempting to break up the fight, and after calling the police for assistance, a SWAT team was sent in. Witnesses believe that the incident was the result of jealous rage that may have been attributable to drug use. Upon their arrest, one sister told police that their removal was racially motivated, but a contingent of Twisted Element’s black clientele stepped forward in support of the club. Most of the staff members that were injured during the incident told us that they will be pressing charges on Jamal and his sisters. At time of press, GayCalgary.com was unable to reach Jamal for comment.
Though incidents like this are rare in the gay community, it is still a far cry from the stabbings and shootings that occur almost regularly at many straight night clubs. On Halloween weekend, as Steve was up in Edmonton covering the parties at all the bars, he passed by the straight club where several people were shot less than an hour later. As I was doing my rounds by foot here in Calgary, I found it alarming the number of police cars that were in active circulation, and the number of ambulances I saw whizzing by enroute to the next injury.
Speaking of Halloween (okay not the most positive segue I could have come up with), or in our case October 28th when most Halloween parties were held, my night went something like this. Before the parties even started, I needed to run out to the Backlot, the Calgary Eagle, and Twisted to restock them with October magazines for this traditionally insanely busy night. Round about 9:00pm I headed out to photograph Grave Gala at Hotel Arts, then to the Backlot. After that I barely missed the bus up to PUMP (the GirlsGo dance) so I went to the Eagle which was scheduled as my next stop anyway. After photographing there, I ran back to the bus stop and caught the 1 up to the Inglewood Community Hall. Once I was finished I saw the bus already coming and, by some miracle I was able to beat it to the stop, saving myself a 20 minute wait in the cold. I caught the train to 8th Street and briefly stopped by Twisted Element on my way up to Money-Pennies. I returned to Twisted in time for their costume competition, and to take more candid shots. After that, the trains were no longer running, so I walked up 7th Ave to the Eagle, arriving 5 minutes before last call, where I ordered my first and only two drinks of the night. WHEW!!
My original plan for a costume this year was simple but creative. I was going to duct-tape a can of Coca-Cola to my forehead and see how many people got the pun. At the last minute I whimped out and went back to my Monk/Druid costume that I’ve worn or not worn for the past 7 years. It was originally meant to be a monk outfit from the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail. One person at the Backlot got it right away, and told me the hilarious meaning of the Latin chant they use in the movie – I never knew! But it says something about our culture that, even without a light saber, more people thought I was a Jedi than a Monk. Still, on the train, an older woman with an accent and dressed as a Gypsy asked me, “Are oo a priest? Then pray for me – Maria.” Okay…was she just playing along with her costume, or was she hitting on me? Either way Maria, you were REALLY barking up the wrong tree!
I saw some really elaborate costumes this year, and I applaud those people that went all out despite the cold weather. The most amazing costume I saw however, was not in any of the bars – it was someone getting off the train in the downtown core. They had a home-made dragon costume that made them look about twice their actual size. They had on a mask with the dragon’s head towering a meter over their own, a long tail trailing behind them, and what looked like a walking stick in each hand to control the Dragon’s front legs, making it look like the creature was actually walking! My Monk/Druid/Priest/Jedi hood goes off to you, my friend.
Steve in Edmonton had a similarly busy night but with heavy snowfall and colder temperatures. There were times when he would pop into an establishment for less than an hour, and his footprints would be gone by the time he left. He was a poop and didn’t wear a costume, though considering he could only carry so much in his backpack, I guess this is excusable.
It’s that time of year when many of the bars have their own anniversaries to worry about too...it’s pretty funny that so many are clumped together in a period of two months. Backlot’s was last month, but upcoming we have Twisted Element’s 2nd Anniversary on November 11th, and Money Pennies’ 11th Anniversary on December 4th. In Edmonton, Boots has their 28th Anniversary coming up on the 25th of November. We extend our congratulations to all of these businesses for having another year under their belt!

Thank YOU!
Though a lot of the magazine rides on our shoulders, we still have a lot of people to thank for our success. After all, issue #1 of GayCalgary.com Magazine was only 24 pages, and now we’re regularly 72 pages by issue #37. All of the content to fill those pages has to come from somewhere, and so we have a lot of people to thank.
First and foremost we have to thank our readers and supporters, because without them the magazine would be an awful waste of effort to line bird cages! A lot of these same people are the ones who allow us to photograph them each month, who share their stories with us and give us novel ideas and the heads-up when opportunities arise; the same people who kick us in the butt and tell us why, if they think that we’ve done wrong.
We thank our advertisers who infuse us with the financial strength we need to bring the magazine to fruition each month. They do so in exchange for a means of getting their message to our readers, asking those people to support them by buying products and services, or attending events. We thank our printers, North Hill News, for their support and patience during our often hectic press deadlines. We cannot forget the individuals, businesses and organizations that often offer to lend us a hand with a multitude of things, and apologize to the people who want to get to know us that we have not yet been able to fit into our ludicrous monthly schedule.
So far this has only covered the people outside of the company!
Without our writers, putting together the magazine would be arduous if not impossible. Words cannot express our gratitude for our senior writers Jason Clevett, Stephen Lock, and Arin Chilton (Nina Tron) who have helped to shape the magazine over these past three years. They have tirelessly fulfilled our requests while still bringing their own ideas to the table. We also thank the writers that have joined us on our journey that have contributed a great deal to us: Nico Hofferd, Shone Abet, Kevin Alderson, Darryl Aarbo, Alykhan Velji, Linda Huston, Jake Wallace, Benjamin Hawkcliffe and Jerome Voltero. We cannot forget about our other contributors, too numerous to list, but we appreciate the initiative you have taken to write us letters or even contribute the occasional article.
If there is anyone else that we should mention but didn’t think of, we apologize and thank you too!

The Gift
I finish off this rather long column with mention of a documentary that ever gay male, youth and adult, should be required to watch. “The Gift” airs on OUTtv on the evening of December 1st, World AIDS Day, because it talks about a dangerous emerging trend that so many are oblivious to: bug chasers. I’ve heard the term in passing many times myself, but until I saw this documentary earlier this year, I didn’t realize the true severity and tragedy of the mentality that many of these individuals adopt. It can lead them to ruin their lives and hurt many others in the process.
Bug chasers are individuals who purposely try to become infected with HIV so that they no longer need to worry about safe sex practices with others who may or may not have HIV/AIDS. Make sure you set your VCRs and PVRs to record this program if you are out for one of the many World AIDS Day events. It is an eye opener – you owe it to yourself not to miss it.
Reairing on OUTtv for WORLD AIDS DAY 2006 is the critically acclaimed award winning documentary, THE GIFT, created by Louise Hogarth. The documentary will air at 10pm EST on December 1st, preceded by a panel discussion about “gift giving” and AIDS in the GLBT community.
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!