Pride Night

[vaneramos]

My favourite hang-out spot in Guelph, the -bar, is trying to start a Pride Night on Sunday evenings. I went for the first time yesterday.

Trying to get the GLBT community out to anything in Guelph is a challenge. It's a conservative community; I don't mean Guelph, but its gays and lesbians. They live quiet lives, rarely emerging from their dinner party circuits except to visit Toronto, Kitchener or Hamilton. Somebody tried to start a gay bar years ago, before I came out, but it quickly went out of business. Since then, several different establishments have tried GLBT bar nights with varying success, mostly drawing crowds from the university. Monthly dances sponsored by the Rainbow Chorus are unique in drawing the 30s to 60s crowd.

The -bar has a classier ambience than most of the Guelph bars and potential to draw both the student and older crowds. Pride Night will feature a d.j. and require a $2 cover charge. It is just getting started and unfortunately last night it was dead. This is to be expected now that exams are over. I chatted with Brett, the organizer, who formerly ran queer dances at The Underground on Thursday nights. He said the -bar has a reputation for being exclusive, but frankly I don't see that. They're planning a "grand opening" on January 11 with free food, so we'll see how that goes.

I sent an email around to my friends yesterday, but everyone was away or busy with Christmas activities. Only Marg showed up, but we had a pint and a post mortem of the chorus's season. We agreed that we have to drag her cousin and his partner, xtc_cub, out to one of our concerts someday.

I better have breakfast and get dressed. I have to go rent a car in an hour, and then pick up my daughters. The sky looks heavy. Hopefullly I won't have to deal with snow or rain on the long drive.

Comments

[theatresumthing.livejournal.com]

Good luck with the weather in regards to your travels.

I'm originally from small town Maine, where if there was one gay establishment you were lucky. And if it wasn't a Saturday night, that usually meant there wasn't a soul save the bartender to be seen in the place. I was amazed when I first moved to Chicago. You could head out any night and find a crowd somewhere.

I admire anyone that live in quieter settings. I am truly a city mouse.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

I grew up in the county, and I'm lucky to have aspects of both city and country where I live. I don't know whether I could stand living in a big city like Toronto, but on the other hand I miss it badly when I don't get to visit for a while. I think I'm still a country boy at heart. My ideal is to live and work at the cottage and spend weekends in Toronto! These days I spend most of my time stuck somewhere in between.

[ruralrob.livejournal.com]

It sounds a bit like Peterborough, which has also tried the gay bar route, without success, and which is also a town relying heavily on its connections with the university for any significant GLBT activity.

Still, things are improving. They had their first Pride march this year which I think a few hunderd people attended - a nice start. And of course, the local AIDS organization (with a full-time staff of six) maintains a significant presence . . .

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Guelph's problem is we live in the shadow of other larger cities, however we had our first Pride event in June and it was more successful than anyone expected.