Archive for the 'Issues' Category

This Mag­i­cal Place
As told to Jeff Lawrence.

From Sad Mag issue 7/8.

At 21, Ghas­san Shanti left behind a life of fear in Jor­dan because of his sex­u­al­ity and claimed refugee sta­tus in Canada to begin a promis­ing career as a makeup artist.

My par­ents are Pales­tin­ian, but I was born in Jor­dan. So I guess I’m from Jor­dan, but I spent a big chunk of my child­hood in south­ern Cal­i­for­nia in a small town called Torrance.

We moved there when I was five, in 1990, and we lived in Cal­i­for­nia until I was 14. In 1999, we moved back to Jor­dan. It was the most hor­ren­dous, trau­matic expe­ri­ence of my life, prob­a­bly. I spent the next seven years there until I turned 21. High school is dif­fi­cult enough in any part of the world, let alone being a lit­tle Amer­i­can­ized, angsty teen in the Mid­dle East.

For the first cou­ple years of high school I always thought that I would just some­how move back to the States—I didn’t know how. Then 9/11 hap­pened and it became vir­tu­ally impos­si­ble for an Arab to travel between the Mid­dle East and the U.S. It was just incred­i­bly dif­fi­cult, and I fig­ured that it would be years before the anti-Arab cli­mate would cool down.

I wanted to go to Canada because I fig­ured it would be a bet­ter option than the U.S. I chose Van­cou­ver because it was the least cold part of Canada. I guess I was right. The sum­mer that I moved here was per­fect: July 2006. It was magic, the best sum­mer the city has had in ages.

I don’t know that I would be alive today if I were liv­ing in Jor­dan. It’s a Mus­lim coun­try. But I hon­estly don’t think that Islam is any more anti-gay than any of the other major reli­gions, specif­i­cally Chris­tian­ity. I think that they both man­age to be as spite­ful in their vit­riol against homo­sex­u­als. But there’s no leg­is­la­tion in Jor­dan pro­tect­ing me, and anti-homophobia leg­is­la­tion in Canada is super exten­sive. Unlike Jor­dan, where being gay is a crim­i­nal act, vir­tu­ally any dis­crim­i­na­tion against gays is a crim­i­nal act here. I feel safe.

Photo: Daphne Chan.

Mega­phone, Van­cou­ver’ street paper, has repub­lished an arti­cle from Sad Mag’s Queer His­tory Issue. The arti­cle, Tough in Tran­sit by Daniel Zom­par­elli, fol­lows Char­l­ize Gor­don and Suzanne Kil­roy as they nav­i­gate gen­der and sex­u­al­ity in one of Vancouver’s tough­est neighbourhoods.

Sean Con­don, Mega­phone’s Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, had this to say on the magazine’s website:

The Down­town East­side may be home to our city’s most mar­gin­al­ized res­i­dents, but that doesn’t mean it’s always accept­ing of peo­ple who live on the fringes. Just ask Char­l­ize Gor­don and Suzanne Kilroy.

Char­l­ize, a recently-transgendered woman, and Suzanne, who’s two-spirited, have bravely faced down myr­iad chal­lenges rang­ing from sim­ple homo­pho­bia to phys­i­cal abuse while find­ing their places as proud mem­bers of the DTES’s LGBTQ com­mu­nity. The diverse social makeup of today’s DTES owes much to the strug­gles and tri­umphs of peo­ple like Char­l­ize and Suzanne, as uncov­ered in this story from Sad Mag’s Queer His­tory issue.

You can buy the issue now from one of Mega­phone’s ven­dors for a sug­gested dona­tion of $2.

Rain­bow Reels
By Esther Tung

From Sad Mag issue 7/8.

Just before the rise of AIDS, Canada’s—and pos­si­bly the world’s—first gay and les­bian cable-access show, Gay­ble­vi­sion, thrived on West End Cable 10. Any­one with enthu­si­asm and an idea could cre­ate or con­tribute to the hour-long show, which aired weekly from 1980 to 1986. The pro­duc­tion team was will­ing to train and develop new, inex­pe­ri­enced tal­ent, and there’s no doubt that the show’s acces­si­bil­ity con­tributed to its longevity.

One of the co-founders of Gay­ble­vi­sion, Mary Anne McEwen, was a UBC alum­nus who was booted from her soror­ity in 1965 for being a les­bian. When Gay­ble­vi­sion was first estab­lished, McE­wan, who had a half-decade stint as Cre­ative Direc­tor of Cre­ative House, was the only staff mem­ber who had any expe­ri­ence work­ing in media. McEwen passed away ear­lier this year, but she spoke about putting together Gay­ble­vi­sion at the 2010 Van­cou­ver Queer Film Fes­ti­val, where select episodes of the ground­break­ing pro­gram were screened.

The first episode of Gay­ble­vi­sion cap­tured the open­ing of the infa­mous Ham­burger Mary, a gay-friendly burger joint that was one of the first estab­lish­ments to open along Davie Street in 1979, and is still open today. Other notable seg­ments include an inter­view with out-of-the-closet Amer­i­can play­wright Ten­nessee Williams, as well as a doc­u­men­tary on another pop­u­lar gay venue of the time, a shady bar called Vanport.

Gay­ble­vi­sion once held a dear place in the heart of the ’80s queer com­mu­nity, and it is one of many gen­e­sis sto­ries of Vancouver’s queer culture.

Illus­tra­tion: Monika Koch.

Editor’s note:  Gay­ble­vi­sion is archived at VIVO Media Arts. Thank you to the help­ful staff for their assis­tance with this article.

A Long Walk
Vancouver’s First Pride Parade
By Derek Bedry

From Sad Mag issue 7/8.

Vancouver’s pride parade today is a daz­zling, splashy spec­ta­cle of throb­bing bass, rain­bow glit­ter, top­less les­bians roar­ing down Rob­son on mus­cu­lar motor­bikes, and shirt­less studs lob­bing Mardi Gras beads into a crowd of more than 500,000 giddy spec­ta­tors. Along with the vis­i­bil­ity of queer peo­ple in this city, the parade has cer­tainly grown from hum­ble beginnings.

Vancouver’s first offi­cially sanc­tioned gay pride parade took place on August 1, 1981. The route began in Nel­son Park and pro­ceeded to Alexan­dra Park via Thur­low, then Beach and Pacific—and instead of com­pletely occu­py­ing these streets, the parade was given one side of each, while traf­fic pro­ceeded oth­er­wise unin­ter­rupted. An esti­mate by the Van­cou­ver Sun puts roughly 1,500 par­tic­i­pants at the parade.

Bill Sik­say, for­mer Burnaby-Douglas MP and the orga­niz­ing committee’s UBC rep­re­sen­ta­tive in ’81, says it was more of a demon­stra­tive march: “It was about claim­ing our place in the streets of Van­cou­ver for the first time. The spirit of it was we’re here, we’re your neigh­bours, we’re part of the com­mu­nity and we’re not going away.”

In years prior, pro­pos­als to estab­lish offi­cial pride cel­e­bra­tions were deftly struck down by coun­cil­lors’ votes. In 1981, Mayor Mike Har­court signed a procla­ma­tion nam­ing the week of August 1–7 Gay Unity Week, ful­fill­ing an elec­tion promise.

Sik­say says the abil­ity for queer peo­ple to announce them­selves in broad day­light was a major step for­ward for Vancouver’s LGBT population.

“[Before 1981] you often felt iso­lated, like it was a long slog to do the work you wanted, have the rela­tion­ships you wanted, to be the per­son that you were. You felt like every place you turned there was a chal­lenge, and I think hav­ing that moment of pride really made a lot of other things pos­si­ble for folks,” he says.

The march­ing queers were not entirely embraced by onlook­ers. Sik­say recalls some strange looks and com­ments from vehi­cles dri­ving by, and one group of young men in par­tic­u­lar who shouted at Sik­say, his part­ner Brian, and their Great Dane.

“They said, ‘Is the dog gay too?’ And I think it was the only time in my life I’ve ever had a retort for some­thing like that. I said, ‘Why, no. She’s a lesbian.’”

How­ever, Sik­say says more peo­ple were sup­port­ive or curi­ous than hos­tile. The cel­e­brants were so happy, noth­ing was going to dampen their spir­its on the sunny day they marched for diver­sity on the streets of Vancouver.

“That work isn’t done yet,” says Sik­say. “I think Pride is still about claim­ing our place in the life of the city, the cul­ture of Van­cou­ver. [Today’s Pride parade is] broader, much broader than it was back then, but the root of it remains the same. I think every­body who goes to Pride today has that kind of feeling.”

Image: Cour­tesy the B.C. Gay and Les­bian Archives.

Give the gift of Sad Mag for just $12, and remind your friends and fam­ily of your good taste the whole year through. Or maybe it is time to “treat yo self.”

Order before Decem­ber 17, and a hol­i­day card will be sent to the recip­i­ent that noti­fies them of their new sub­scrip­tion, in time for Christ­mas. Mean­while, gen­er­ous Van­cou­verites that place an order before Decem­ber 17 will also earn an entry into a draw for a $100 gift cer­tifi­cate to Burcu’s Angels vin­tage cloth­ing store. Visions of vin­tage furs and sequins dance in our heads!

Photo by Jonathan Spooner

Sad Mag: Who are you?

Monika Koch: I’m a puppy tamer and a scor­pion fighter.

SM: What do you do?

MK: I make things. I make things look nice. I ride my bike, usu­ally fast. I sleep when I have no other choice.

SM: How did you become a designer?

MK: I was one of those kids who was con­stantly com­mis­sioned by peers to draw car­toon char­ac­ters in return for snacks in ele­men­tary school. Thank­fully, I am no longer paid in snacks, because the lightning-quick metab­o­lism is gone and I can’t pay rent in snacks. My pur­suit of design as a grownup must have been ignited with my deci­sion not to go to art school.

After about a year of uni­ver­sity, the need to cre­ate became unbear­able. Sadly for my GPA, from then on I com­mit­ted myself to nur­tur­ing my skill in every way I saw fit. Design came as a nat­ural out­let– my dad taught indus­trial design, and I grew up fid­dling with Adobe soft­ware. I free­lanced and stayed sharp with illus­tra­tion and per­sonal projects. Some­how I man­aged to grad­u­ate, and kept at the free­lance thing. My best friend, also a free­lanc­ing designer at the time, saw me through that period and I couldn’t ever thank him enough for his sup­port and the inspi­ra­tion to just do what I love.

SM: Where do you live?

MK: Mount Pleas­ant.

SM: What’s your Hal­loween costume?

MK: I’m not telling. Not because I’m wait­ing for my bril­liance to save me at the last minute.

SM: Favourite mag­a­zines?

MK: ACNE Paper, Cir­cus, S, and Interview.

SM: What are you excited about for fall?

MK: As a New Eng­lan­der, I am excited for colder tem­per­a­tures and any­thing that resem­bles that kind of autumn, even for a day or two. This year’s has been beau­ti­ful, though. Mostly I just want to wear more cloth­ing, look like I dropped out of Sar­to­ri­al­ist and feel cold air on my cheeks.

Sad Mag presents: The Queer Cul­tural Awards and Show

The Cobalt (917 Main St)

8:00PM-1:00AM

Advance tick­ets $6, at the door $8

Full details on Face­book.

The Sad Mag team has been hard at work on our biggest project of the year: issue 7/8, a spe­cial dou­ble issue com­mem­o­rat­ing Vancouver’s queer his­tory from 1960-today. The new issue launches Thurs­day, Novem­ber 3 at the Cobalt, and we hope you’ll join us to hon­our Vancouver’s incred­i­ble artists, per­form­ers and com­mu­nity leaders.

Sad Mag Queer Cul­ture Awards and Show

Thurs­day, Novem­ber 3
The Cobalt at 917 Main Street
8:00pm — 1:00am
Tick­ets $6 / Door $8
Includes a com­pli­men­tary copy of the magazine.

Join us for an evening of LIVE enter­tain­ment in our queer artists cabaret hosted by funny woman Mor­gan Bray­ton, fea­tur­ing come­dian Dan Dumsha, drag artist Isolde N. Barron…and more to be announced!

Tick­ets avail­able at Red Cat Records and Lit­tle Sister’s Art and Book Empo­rium. See the event on Face­book.

About This Issue

Sad Mag’s first cover star was Isolde N. Bar­ron, East Van’s intre­pid drag queen, so it won’t come as a sur­prise that we’re fas­ci­nated and delighted by Vancouver’s vibrant queer artists. How­ever, what has sur­prised us in the past two years of pub­lish­ing was the pub­lic reac­tion to our queer con­tent. Peo­ple asked, was Sad Mag a queer mag­a­zine, then, by pub­lish­ing arti­cles about queer artists?

Sad Mag’s mis­sion is to cel­e­brate and pro­mote inde­pen­dent, acces­si­ble and community-oriented art and cul­ture in Van­cou­ver, BC. For our edi­to­r­ial team, it would have been a sig­nif­i­cant over­sight as an art mag­a­zine to ignore the force of cre­ativ­ity and expres­sion reflected in Vancouver’s queer com­mu­ni­ties. From drag stars to award-winning play­wrights, dancers to musi­cians, writ­ers, pho­tog­ra­phers and beyond—it has been our priv­i­lege to wit­ness the stun­ning cre­ativ­ity and sheer ambi­tion of our city’s queer artists.

We weren’t try­ing to make a state­ment by pub­lish­ing the sto­ries of queer artists. It would have been a state­ment not to.

In our Queer His­tory Issue, our edi­to­r­ial team and con­trib­u­tors have endeav­ored to explore the theme of queer art and cul­ture in greater depth. Made pos­si­ble by the City of Van­cou­ver as part of its 125th anniver­sary cel­e­bra­tions, the Queer His­tory Issue is a start­ing point: a place from where we can begin to under­stand the impact of the west coast LGBT move­ment on Van­cou­ver, and the impact of Vancouver’s queer com­mu­ni­ties on the world.

Sad Mag is prep­ping for Issue 7, our cel­e­bra­tion of Van­cou­ver Queer His­tory. The issue launches Novem­ber 3rd and we are going through archives, inter­view­ing and shoot­ing the final sto­ries. Lucky for us, our the­atre friends have put together a show on the colour­ful his­tory of Vancouver’s Drag Queens: Tucked and Plucked: Vancouver’s Drag His­tory Live On Stage!

Isolde N. Bar­ron, talk show host­ess with the mostess.

You’ll find out about Vancouver’s rich drag queen his­tory as Sad Mag’s favourite drag queen, Isolde N. Bar­ron becomes our very own Oprah as she hosts a live talk show fea­tur­ing sto­ries and per­for­mances by queens from our glam­ourous past. You’ll find Joan-E, Jay­lene Tyme, Mona Regina Lee and new­comer Peach Cob­blah, which sounds like enough per­son­al­i­ties to rival the squawk­fests on The View.

This Fri­day and Saturday

Sep­tem­ber 23 & 24 — 8PM
PAL Van­cou­ver Stu­dio The­atre (581 Cardero Street @ West Geor­gia)
Tick­ets: $10
BOX OFFICE: 604.684.8028
Tick­ets Online

Artist Rob Fougere graces the cover of Sad Mag’s Issue 6.  Here’s a pre­view of Michelle Reid’s arti­cle, in which Rob dis­cusses the logis­tics of repur­pos­ing vin­tage pho­tog­ra­phy. Get a copy in print at the Anza Club tonight!

“I try not to take credit for pho­tos I didn’t take. I’ll cer­tainly take credit for print­ing a found neg­a­tive, because I’m mak­ing choices about how to print the neg­a­tive, and I feel that’s fair, but I’ll credit it to ‘unknown pho­tog­ra­pher’ or ‘found neg­a­tive.’” Through­out the con­ver­sa­tion he re– turns to the impor­tance of mak­ing art pub­lic, and says, “I like to think that some of the orig­i­nal pho­tog­ra­phers, espe­cially the pho­to­jour­nal­ists, would be proud to have their pho­tos hang­ing in a gallery.”

–Michelle Reid

Pho­tographs: Eric Thompson