I don't need a Gay Village!

This morning came TheStar's attempt at looking relevant and caring about queer issues...about 2 weeks too late.

If you're queer and semi aware of current events, you've heard that Zelda's is no longer on Church St.  In true super uber gay drama, Zelda's up and disappeared over night.  Apparently, rent was just too expensive for them. 

People cried and cheered over such an occurrence and continued with the talks of the Village dying.

Bitches, the Village has been bleeding from both ends towards a slow death for years.  It's simple.  It's old and tired and needs some major lipo to look good again.  Plus, it only appeals to a very small market.  And unlike every other writer, I'm not going to mention that it's only for middle aged middle class whities.  It's simply for those that are fine w/ rocking the gay stereotype.

I haven't been out gay clubbing in TO in close to 7 months.  Why?  a) I'm avoiding all my ex's and b) I rarely enjoy myself.

Here's our choice for a 'Church St & Area' gay night out...

1) Woody's - never been and made life long goal to never attend.  I win Best Ass every night at my place. :P

2) Zelda's - I went there twice.  One for a b-day party.  Once for drinks.  It was campy, but the food was blah.

3) Crews - This place was already way too hot and the DJs played mostly crap.  The only fun thing was going up and down the stairs hoping to catch a good song.  Then continuing to play that game all night long.

4) Buddies - They will never succeed on a Fri. night.  Saturdays were hit and miss.  If the DJ ignored crappy requests by drunken children and stuck to a current top 40 mix...it'd be tolerable.

5) Fly - HA!

6) 5ive - I miss you.  You were fun

7) Barn - HA, HA!

8) Goodhandy's - Wednesday stroke offs were fun until they kept pushing the 'good' stuff until after 12 and closer to 1am.  Some of us need to work the next day. 

9) I'm sure there's more, but is of no interest to me...

Now a lot is being said about 'do we really need a gay village?' - it's safe everywhere!  Or at least in a few more spaces within the city. 

For me, it's that the heteros have invaded the space so much that it's no longer queer.  It's just another night out.  There's nothing special about any of these clubs.  I see heteros making out with each other, brides hosting their bachelorettes, or every fag with 6-7 hags. 

Plus, can't we be a bit more creative with our programming??  House music and go go boys...COME NOW!  Dance music and a drag queen with go go boys...COME NOW!!!  Seriously??  The nights are all failing..why don't we try something a little different?  Perhaps, a rock night.  Imagine that??  A night where we dance up a storm to some solid rock...or even rock pop...if we must start somewhere.  Or even *gasps* a 25 and older club night.  How many of us have simply stopped clubbing because we're tired of the baby gays upstaging us or simply being SOOO annoyingly stupid and drunk and high?

Instead of blaming increased rent spaces for shoo-ing the queer establishments out of their spaces???  Why don't we look at some alternatives measures to what to do to attract queers back to Church?

We will be visible

On Monday August 24th at 8pm at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, my company 'a jay stewart project' presents Hard & Able: celebrating queer disability. It is by far my proudest artistic accomplishment project thus far. I had the idea about a year ago to put on a cabaret event featuring artists that identify as both queer and disabled. Why? Cuz I'm queer and disabled and wanted to meet other similar artists.

First, I did my research to see if anybody else was doing similar events. I really dislike creating something from scratch if somebody else was doing it. Research demonstrated that others HAD been doing similar events, but no longer. I applied for a grant from Community One and was the lucky recipient back in April.

This put into motion a call out to the community to locate artists that were queer and disabled. Which proved to not be so easy. I discovered that the word 'disabled' is a word that many of us choose not to subscribe to. It's you know...for those...that are really disabled. If you wear glasses, suffer from depression or have a heart murmur...that's shitty, but not enough to be disabled. WRONG-O in my books!!! That stuff all qualifies as a disability and I wanted individuals like this to be a part of the night. It's an evening for all those that exist on the disability spectrum to come together and say that a) we are visible and b) we're immensely talented!

As someone who suffers physical pain daily and wears hearing aids, you may or may not have ever classified me as disabled. Why?  Cuz my disabilities are not all that visible. I've been like this since birth and my Mom has always prided me on celebrating my differences. Who I am today is owed very much to having such a supportive individual in my life. I was brought up to acknowledge my disability, but to never let it stand in the way of accomplishing any of my goals.

I invite you to come out to Hard & Able: celebrating queer disability and support artists that identify as both queer and disabled. It's going to be an exciting evening filled with artists doing drag, spoken word, songs, skits with videos and photography too.

If you're not in Toronto, you can still be a part of the event by paying for access to the live feed. E-mail me at jay@ajaystewartproject.com for more information.  Check out the facebook event for those in the GTA

I hope that you will come and bare witness to a small step towards making each of these artists a visible part of the artistic community.

In an effort to make this event accessible, the venue is wheelchair accessible and there will be ASL interpretation provided.

Promoting Disability!

Often times, my work, academics, and art collide together perfectly. This week is no different.

I am in the process of researching an essay for my equity and human rights course. The essay is on individuals with disabilities and employment opportunities. There is a huge untapped pool of intelligent individuals who are not receiving work in some part to the attitudes of those that are in the position of hiring. Instead of looking at the positive contributions, they may immediately jump to the negative start-up impact of accommodating someone with a disability. When no such impact may exist. I've read through about 20 journal papers so far and it's going to be a great paper. :)

At work and in life, I'm often reminded that I exist with an invisible disability. New encounters with people see that the topic may come up and it always seems to surprise them at first. Which is odd, cuz why can't somebody be like me and be hearing impaired? They try to find the hearing aids and it's like a game of 'where are they?' They sit in my ear canal, not exactly a place that people spend hours staring at. I'd hope that my eyes would lure them in, not a hole in the side of my head. :P

I'm producing a cabaret at Buddies in Bad Times on Monday August 24th featuring only artists that identify as queer and disabled. Not just queers, not just disabled, not allies. I think it's important that minorities within minorities be recognized. Especially a grouping that may be forgotten or over looked. The most interesting thing with this project is those that by law definitions and mine do classify as disabled who don't own that word. I'm certainly someone who sees myself as fitting into the mainstream, but I've also proposed shows that put it right out there, 'deaf, bi, and sick' - makes things pretty clear. ;) "Hard & Able: celebrating queer disability" will be on Monday August 24th. If you want to perform, let me know by July 10th at jay@ajaystewartproject.com.

At my work, we're presently taking accessible customer service training and it's a great initiative. Although, the training is a bit of a joke. If someone is blind do you: 1) point and say 'hey, it's just over there.', 2) 'pet their guide dog without permission' or 3) 'assist them as needed.' It's like saying is the sky 'blue', 'yellow', or 'maroon.' There should be some thought put into the training and trust, I've made my comments well known to those facilitating. :) Thankfully, I'll get to put 200 of my own staff through the training and make my own adjustments.

Secretly, this has been a life long passion of mine to remove the stigma of what disability represents. From the gr. 12 debate that had my opponent arguing the merits of sterilizing disabled individuals, where I crushed him and the entire class that was on his side.

To me, disability is a spectrum statement that covers such a vast amount of individuals. However, people still seem to see it as one thing: individuals incapable of taking care of themselves.

When I'd say a vast majority are strong empowering individuals that consistently demonstrate that the only limitations that exist are those that you put on them.