June never fails to be a crazy month, and this one was both a literal and figurative whirlwind...

At its very outset we were up in Edmonton for their Pride celebrations.  Though the parade went down a different route this year, it still had its destination at Churchill Square for the street festival.  People lined up for hours to get into the packed beer gardens, however plenty stayed on the sidelines to take in the live entertainment and enjoy the sunny weather.

As we’ve done for the past several years, I took a video recording of the parade which can be viewed on our website (at www.gaycalgary.com/a2292) while Steve took photos.  Then we split off, each with cameras, to photograph the show and attendees having fun and losing clothes.  I followed suit, losing my shirt for my first opportunity of the year to soak up some sun through a layer of SPF 30.

This year’s entertainment wasn’t as drag-heavy as it has been in previous years, which made way for a unique variety of bands and singers.  One singer was Robin S, the voice behind the famous song "Show Me Love", while the lead of another act wore gold spandex pants and sung Lady Gaga’s Judas to a pygmy-sized blow-up doll with Stephen Harper’s face taped onto it.

As the celebration was winding down, we got packed up and headed toward the Edmonton Expo Centre for the Pure Pride dance.  We stopped in a nearby parking lot for a brief nap before heading in.  You may remember the Pure Pride dance last year, which was held in a huge underground parking lot.  Once again the boys from Pure Pride put on a spectacular event that included a fashion show by Priape, performances by Mark Sheppard, several high-end DJs, some celebrity go-go dancers, and some highly suggestive shadow play by porn star Brent Everett.

The next morning, still a little groggy from all the activity the day prior, we headed out for the Pride Festival Pancake Breakfast, and shortly after, brunch at the Pride Centre of Edmonton.

The next weekend, I had been up quite late the Friday night completing the electronic side for the GAYmazing Race being put on by Pride Calgary.  We had published a number of tags in the June edition of the magazine, their purpose mysterious until they came into play for this scavenger hunt.  Teams were given clues at each location of which tag to scan, and what password to use to access the clue that would lead them to the next location.

My 30th birthday fell on the Saturday of that weekend, and it was planned that I would be up in Edmonton to cover the Gilligan’s Island Riverboat Party being put on by Buddys.  I was supposed to leave Calgary shortly after the GAYmazing Race kicked off.  However, we received the news that the party had been postponed due to unfavourable conditions on the river caused by the high volumes of rain.  The event has been rescheduled to Friday, July 22nd starting at 7pm, and will be part of their week-long 11th birthday bash.

So unexpectedly I ended up in Calgary for my birthday with no plans whatsoever.  Following the GAYmazing Race Afterparty, we headed out for dinner at our favorite Chinese buffet, then went out for some drinks at Club Sapien and FAB since they were in walking distance from home.  Both bars showed us some great hospitality on this rare occasion that I was out drinking.

This year’s Comic & Entertainment Expo was a huge hit yet again.  Though we hadn’t originally planned to do so, as a sponsor of the event we were able to get a table to promote the magazine whilst we covered the event and interviewed further sci-fi celebrities (to appear in this edition and next).  While manning our booth, two things became clear to me.  One: Many of those male geeks that get teased and taunted when they are young, grow up to be some damn handsome and formidable looking men – you sure wouldn’t want to mess with some of them now!  Two: Our magazine was surprisingly well received by the open-minded sci-fi crowd.

At one point, a large procession of people in zombie costumes shuffled through the expo in honour of George Romero, despite being unable to attend because of a recent injury.  My witty comment, from the perspective of a vendor, was, "the worst thing about zombies is that they never buy anything!"

We were also on the hunt for autographs from the people that we had interviewed in the June edition of GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine.  While William Shatner was not accessible to us (and most mainstream media too), we were still able to meet a few of them.  Most memorable was Elvira, who signed the cover of several copies for us.  As she was doing this, some officials of the expo emerged from the curtain behind her, escorting Mayor Nenshi through to meet her!  It was such a bizarre coincidence, but he was excited for us to get photos of him with Elvira.

The following Friday we went ahead with my originally planned Birthday party at the Calgary Eagle where we hung out with some friends and I got a shameful reminder why I don’t overdo it on the drinking anymore.  Thankfully the only place I didn’t vomit was in the cab on the way home.

The next evening was Master Barry’s Celebration of Life party.  Boy David explained onstage that he and Barry had a conversation about how to honour him after he passed away, and Barry’s wish was to bring people of the community together to celebrate his life rather than to mourn.  As he hoped, the evening filled the Calgary Eagle and brought a lot of old friends together again.

has sponsored Lethbridge Pride for the past 3 years, but this was the first time the event has not conflicted with other major events happening in both Calgary and Edmonton that we needed to cover.  Steve and I made the road trip down on Sunday for their OUT in the Park festival.  Compared to Calgary and Edmonton Prides it was a fairly small crowd, thinned by the constant flip-flopping of sun and rain that day, and the voracious mosquitoes in the park.

We finally had the chance to meet a number of the organizers that we’ve been corresponding with by Email for the past several years, and interact with some of the attendees.  Fendi from Calgary performed some drag numbers amidst a variety of colourful belly dancers, hula dancers, clowns, and live music.  The Calgary-based band Hashmagandy finished off the afternoon.

It’s irrefutable that the annual Canadian Rockies International Rodeo put on by ARGRA is the biggest LGBT event of the year for Alberta, and as was pointed out, the second largest in Western Canada next to Vancouver Pride.

Since their move to Strathmore 3 years ago, ARGRA has been taking steps each year to grow and engage a wider LGBT audience.  This year we saw some major improvements to the layout of the midway, and the variety of attractions offered.

The Grandstands, food vendors, vendor tables, GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine Community Carnival, Beer Garden and Showboat Stage were all along a single line going toward the evening dance venue and location for the pancake breakfasts and dinners.  Between the Carnival and the Beer Garden was the new Memorial Garden – a picnic area amongst small cedar trees, flowers, and a water fountain!

At the GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine Community Carnival, non-profit groups set up carnival games in order to fundraise, or simply raise awareness.  Groups were relieved to have tenting overhead this year, other than the particularly popular dunk tank run by the ISCCA.  Dunking a drag queen is a particularly irresistible prospect, made even sweeter by the notion of a transparent window in the base of the tank to see them floundering underwater.  Even I took a few throws before the weekend was out.  Unfortunately by the end of the day it was difficult to see anything through the cloudy dregs of their makeup swirling around in the water.  Current reigning Emperor Chris Tron, who was convinced to put himself up on the plank at one point over the weekend, reported that the ISCCA raised over $1500 thanks to dunking enthusiasts.

I booked some holiday time off of work so that we could head out on Thursday and enjoy those two days before the real work began.  During the day on Saturday and Sunday we were rushing around taking photographs around the campsites and midway, as well as photographing and videotaping the main rodeo events in the arena.  At the nighttime dances we put on a presentation of photos and video taken during the day’s events.  To pull this off, this year we made use of a 12 foot (diagonal) inflatable screen outside of the dance venue and one of the demo hybrid trucks provided by fellow sponsor Jack Carter to contain our projection equipment – a reverse drive-in theatre, so to speak.

On Sunday at about 3 in the afternoon, roughly half way through the second day of rodeo events, a particularly nasty storm blew in.  It was during the transition between Women’s Barrel Racing and Men’s Barrel Racing that the weather went from sunny to severely windy in a matter of seconds, sending dust and debris (including unsecured tents) flying through the air.  Rodeo officials asked spectators in the grandstands to move back from the front rows for their own safety while they waited to see if the conditions would clear up as quickly as they manifested.

Steve left the shelter of our grandstand box to go secure the contents of our vendor booth, and by the time he got back the wind was so bad that he couldn’t get the door to shut properly.  He told me he had overheard ARGRA Officials discussing the fact that a Tornado warning was in effect for Strathmore, so we decided to close the shutters on the box, pack up our equipment and head back to our camp site to secure everything.  Sure enough, as we were walking away, there was an announcement at the Grandstands asking everyone to evacuate to the nearby dance hall.

We headed there and I stayed put while Steve went back outside to find our writer Evan, secure our campsite, and help round up anyone he saw in the campground.  Soon the dance hall was full of competitors, campers, and their pets.  The official announcement was made to the crowd.  The bad news: the Tornado warning, and reassurance that if the situation grew any worse, we could take shelter in the basement of the dance hall.  The good news: the bar was open for everyone, excluding competitors.

After a long wait Evan, and then several minutes later Steve, arrived at the dance hall – both a little wet from the rain.  Soon after, an announcement was made that the tornado warning had been upgraded to a tornado watch, meaning that there had been touchdowns reported in Strathmore.  Soon after that, ARGRA president Greg Holsworth announced that the Rodeo events would not be able to continue due to safety concerns.  We found out that regardless if the weather conditions improved in time, the debris in the arena and in the grandstands, not to mention shaken mental state of the people and the animals, would have made it dangerous to resume the rodeo events.  And so, the rodeo was effectively over.

As the weather improved nearly an hour later, and reports showed Strathmore in the clear, people were permitted to leave the dance hall and return to their campsites.  The Awards Ceremony and Happy Trails Dance were still a go, so we prepared the presentations for those events and got all set up.

At the Awards Ceremony, it was clear that a few individuals were unhappy about how the missed rodeo events were handled, however ARGRA officials insisted that they followed the guidelines of the International Gay Rodeo Association.

After this I made a quick trip back to Calgary to check on things, and returned to the dance in time to have a few drinks and relax.  Amidst several "friends of Dorothy" references from people at the dance, Judy Munson told us about how her Wild Drag Race team that day was slated to wear costumes in a Wizard of Oz theme.  How appropriate.

At the AIDS Calgary Annual General Meeting last month, GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine was recognized for our support of the organization and its goals and mandate, with the Positive Voices Award.  We declined giving a speech since neither Steve nor I am particularly confident with public speaking – writing is my stronger suit, and so they heckled that I should write something in this edition.

Neither Steve nor I am HIV positive, and yet from its initial conception we have wanted this magazine to help disseminate AIDS awareness information.  We recognize that HIV/AIDS has devastated prior generations in the gay community.  We also recognize how difficult it is to motivate people to protect themselves from this disease without at the same time encouraging them to shun the people who are already affected by it.

While HIV/AIDS is not exclusively a "gay disease" as some would believe, it is certainly a cause that the community has adopted as its own.  For us, it was never a question of whether we should be involved.

Since we started working with AIDS Calgary, their sister organization HIV Edmonton, and numerous other sexual health organizations in Alberta, we have helped to promote and cover countless fundraisers in the LGBT community for HIV/AIDS related causes, and helped carry those messages of awareness back to our readership.  We have offered space whenever needed to publish articles related to HIV/AIDS prevention and sexual health.  We have sponsored numerous AIDS Walks in both Calgary and Edmonton, and this year we are proud to say that we are sponsoring every AIDS Walk event across Alberta!

While it once may have been believed that the LGBT community was a part of the problem, we are showing how the LGBT community of Alberta is playing a major role in being part of the solution.

We have to give a huge thank-you to our writer Evan Kayne who volunteered his time this month to hold the fort at the GayCalgary & Edmonton Magazine booths at Edmonton Pride, the Comic & Entertainment Expo, and the ARGRA Rodeo.  While Steve and I had to be running in all directions, Evan helped to ensure there was consistently someone at our booths to answer questions and to engage with.

Early this month before things got too busy, we finally finished building our front fence to a point where it fully contained our front yard.  The evening that we completed our final push – installing the gate and sealing the passageway at the side of the house with a piece of plastic trellis - we brought Snoopy out to freely explore the front yard for the first time.

It was after dark and the grass was slightly wet from the rain during the day, however Snoopy immediately took to exploring the perimeter, sniffing the grass and plants, hiding in the shadows, pouncing at bugs, and occasionally dashing around the yard making a comical "oor-oor-oor" sound.  It was clear that he was excited about this new world.

We brought out Salem for a bit, who hasn’t seen the grass since he was a kitten.  Snoopy playfully pounced on him from a dark corner, startling him.  Salem was anxious to run back toward the house, but seemed to enjoy hanging out on the porch for a while.

We also tried bringing out Sparky, who supposedly spent his time prior to us adopting him on a farm.  Initially he was outright terrified – we plunked him in the yard and he immediately tried to scuttle back inside, except he couldn’t figure out that the stairs were climbable.  He sat and howled pathetically until we carried him up the stairs and onto the porch.

We had fulfilled my promise to Snoopy, and as I realized, a similar promise to Salem that I had made shortly after his brother passed away.  I was definitely pleased with myself that day.