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queerVOICE
Perception is Truth
James Duggan
copyright 2010
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 It has been observed throughout history that perception is often viewed as truth. Whatever the reality of truth may be our
perceptions rule. No person or group is free of this perception of truth.
While studying for the priesthood,
this was repeated over and over again--beware of what you do and say out of
concern for what others may perceive to be the truth about you. (I'm acutely aware of the dangers of
misperceptions, truths that bare no reality in time and space but do inform
opinion and thought.)
I bring this up, at this time,
because of the recent activity of the Liberty City Lesbian and Gay Democratic Club. You
may remember I wrote about them last year when they endorsed two candidates who
had questionable positions when it came to transgender equality. These
two endorsements gave the perception that Liberty City
was disconnected with the transgender community. Right or wrong, truthful
or not, perception ruled.
Last month, the Liberty City Board elected Micah
Mahjoubian as co-chair of their organization where he has been a
member since 2000. Mahjoubian comes to this position with impressive
credentials as both a political activist and consultant. He also worked
in Mayor Street's
administration as the deputy secretary of external affairs.
Mahjoubian brings great talent and
drive to Liberty City and along with his co-chair, Adah
Bush, will help to breathe fresh life into this organization.
However, remember perception is truth! Mahjoubian is also a paid political
consultant to two candidates who are seeking the endorsement of Liberty City. They are U.S. Senator Arlen
Specter who is seeking re-election and Sharif Street who is running for
Pennsylvania State Representative.
Without questioning the integrity of either
Mahjoubian or Liberty
City to an observer, this
raises many red flags as to the objectivity of both he and the organization he
now co-chairs.
In a news article in Philadelphia Gay News (March
5-11, 2010), Mahjoubian publicly acknowledges that he is a paid political
consultant and that "when it comes time for running endorsement meetings and
other things like that, I'll certainly take a step back and defer to my
co-chair to lead those efforts."
Taking a step back, whatever that means may not be
enough.
For Liberty
City's endorsement
process to be as transparent as possible, at minimum, Mahjoubian must
completely recuse himself from any and all discussions that pertain to the two
races he is a paid consultant for. Anything less may be perceived as
undue influence over the endorsement process. As we already know, perception is often
stronger then the truth.
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What It Looks Like From Here
Thom Cardwell
copyright 2010 |
 Here's a twist that has
quickly become a tradition in Philadelphia
as part of the annual celebration of St. Patrick's Day!
"Kiss
Me, I'm Irish and Gay III" will arrive in the city's
Gayborhood at Voyeur
Nightclub, 1221 St. James Street, 8 p. m. to 12:30 a. m,
Wednesday, March 17, with $10 per person door admission, with a portion of the
proceeds to benefit Philadelphia
FIGHT.
Sponsored by QUEERtimes,
a LGBTQ weekly e-newsletter, by founders Thom Cardwell and James Duggan
and in cooperation with Tre Rios, manager of Voyeur, Mark Seaman,
development director of Philadelphia FIGHT, and Dan Contarino,
veteran club promoter, and Tyler Vaughn,
team captain for Philadelphia
Gryphons Rugby Football Club, and fueled by BUCKmonkey, this year's event will be
held, for the first time ever, actually, on St. Patrick's Day and in the Gayborhood.
"It's all about green shamrocks and pink triangles," I joked when I recalled
the response to the two previous years of hosting "Kiss Me, I'm Irish and Gay" that
encouraged the BUCKmonkey team to continue and expand the tradition into 2010.
"But we also decided to
bring the event to the Gayborhood as a demonstration of our support for the area
that has, for a variety reasons, lost several of our LGBTQ community-based events
in the last few years," I emphasized.
This year's "Kiss Me,
I'm Irish and Gay III" will also headline legendary DJ Reenie Kane who, the organizers discovered, has always wanted to
host a St. Patrick's party for the LGBTQ community. (Partiers can expect Kane's signature dance
favorites mixed with some genuine traditional Irish music that she truly loves
and has collected over decades.)
"As soon as I called her
about the event, Reenie Kane was rushing around the house, gathering up her
traditional Irish music that she'll incorporate into her musical offerings on
March 17," said Contarino, "She was almost hysterical with excitement and Irish
glee."
For their door admission
charge, Irish revelers (we'll all be 100% Irish for the night) will receive a
number of perks, including one free
drink ticket, complimentary finger
food, free collectible tee-shirts
designed (while supplies last) and printed exclusively for this year's event,
and a chance to win many door prizes contributed by businesses citywide.
"Our city has become more diverse and inclusive than it ever has
before," I told the media. "Last year people were calling up and
going, 'I'm not Irish and I'm not Gay,' but can I still come?' The answer is,
of course, this benefit party is for everyone."
Duggan and I recall that the previous crowds for "Kiss Me I'm Irish and Gay"
are always enthusiastic, fun-loving, celebratory and sexually diverse and
"really get into the spirit of the holiday."
(We expect even more of this among crowds this year.)
"There were a lot of gay-friendly types among the gay community individuals who
showed up, even a bachelorette party of 12 young ladies from the suburbs were
drinking and dancing the night away one year," said Duggan.
"Each year we want to
add something new to the event," explained Duggan, who got the idea of adding
the Philadelphia Gryphon's Rugby Football Club, the city's men's sports team
(is mixed with both gay and gay-friendly players, according to Tyler), who will
be featured in their league uniforms and be assisting with the awarding of the
door prizes as well as a surprise dimension to "Kiss Me, I'm Irish and Gay"
that will be unveiled that evening.
Duggan also said that the beneficiary of a portion of the door proceeds each
year is a designated different nonprofit. "This year we chose Philadelphia FIGHT because so many
people have forgotten about HIV and AIDS issues. Besides, Cardwell serves on
their special events advisory board."
Philadelphia FIGHT is a comprehensive AIDS service
organization providing state of the art, culturally competent HIV primary care,
consumer education, advocacy, social services, outreach to people living with
HIV and to those who are at high risk, and access to the most advanced clinical
research. Each year, FIGHT reaches over 8,000 individuals through its education
and outreach efforts and treats over 1,300 individuals with HIV at the Jonathan Lax Treatment
Center. FIGHT's
goal is to end the AIDS epidemic within the lifetime of those currently living
with HIV.
For information about Philadelphia FIGHT, call
(215) 985-4448, ext. 105; visit fight.org
For information about Voyeur, visit voyuernightclub.com
For more information for Kiss Me, I'm Irish and Gay
III, visit queertimes.net/Kiss_Me
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speakOut
Profile of Michael Grossman
Michael Ludin, Guest Columnist
copyright 2010
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Hometown
Filmmaker Making Waves in Hollywood
 Philadelphia native and Temple University
film school graduate Michael Grossman
broke records for Disney on Sunday February 14 with the premiere of its
original movie "StarStruck".
Premiering during a ratings sweeps week and going
up against the biggest and best television has to offer (including the
Olympics) the telecast won its timeslot in its target demographic exceeding
numbers from the same time last year by over 64% becoming cable's number one
scripted telecast in total viewers.
A veteran of over 200 hours of television directed,
Michael's credits include mini series for HBO,
long form TV movies and countless hour dramas including Grey's Anatomy, Private
Practice (pilot), Eli Stone, Dirty Sexy Money and cult favorites "Buffy The Vampire Slayer", "Firefly", "Angel" and "Star Trek
Enterprise". Michael will be working on "Drop Dead Diva" this spring as it begins it second season of
production.
Born and raised in Philadelphia, Mike packed
his bags and headed for Hollywood
with his partner Michael Ludin in 1983
and has never looked back.
Mike and Mike were among the first same sex non
biological couple to adopt a child in California
when they adopted their daughter at birth in 1992.
"It had never been done before in this way, nobody
in the social services system knew what to do or how to do it, so it just moved
forward. Things were a lot different then. There were no
diaper changing tables in public men's rooms, and the common response in stores
from people was "Oh, is it mom's day off?" It has been a wonderful
adventure and we are really glad so many other same sex couples have adopted
children and are enjoying just how fulfilling it can be."
Still together 26 years later, they are looking
forward to the high school graduation of their daughter this spring and
watching her head off to college in New England. And we thought Philly
was too cold in the winter!
When asked if he had any advice for aspiring
filmmakers Grossman said: "Go for it!
There is no better gift then to wake up every
morning and go to work doing what you love. And don't let anyone tell you
you'll never make it or you're crazy, I'm living proof, so go for your dream.
The only caution I always offer is don't ever expect anything and don't
set timetables that you can't control. Get into the business and let it
take you where it takes you.
"Although happy to be directing, my dream was to be
in business and if that landed me in another position, I would still be doing
what I love to do," he admits
Grossman is hoping to crossover into feature films
in the next couple of years and would love to be able to bring a project back
into Philadelphia
and shoot in his home town. Look out for his rising star.
Editor's Note: Michael
Ludin currently lives with Grossman in Venice,
California. Ludin is a
Child Advocate heading up a child advocacy group, Wishful Thinking, 4wishfulthinking.org in Los Angeles and Project Hope in Bali, Indonesia.
He says "helping marginalized kids in Los Angeles
and Bali by leveling the economic playing
field is an incredible and rewarding experience." Nowadays, the two
Mikes are lucky enough to live with the greatest of gifts, Ludin writes--their
daughter Alicia, their 27th anniversary coming up this year, and waking up each
day doing exactly what they want to do for their world and Grossman's craft.
comments@QUEERtimes.net
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Thom's Table on the Qt!
Thom Cardwell
copyright 2010
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 Jeffrey
Sotland,
community activist, board member of the William Way
Community Center and owner of Mikey's in University
City, will open his second location in Philadelphia this weekend.
Described as the city's Gayborhood's newest multi-level nightlife experience, Tabu Lounge & Sports Bar will offer patrons, three floors with dozens of flat
screen televisions tuned to a worldwide selection of sports, a pool table,
great menu with casual comfort food, and plenty of rooms for private events.
"While it is nestled right in the
middle of the Gayborhood, Tabu is going to be the place where a gay guy and his
straight best friend can BOTH hang-out. It's
a place designed for all people," explained Sotland.
For the beer lovers
in this city (and there are increasingly large number of Philadelphians who
enjoy their brew these days), Tabu will
be serious about its beer selection,
promises Sotland, with 12 tap beers
including: Brooklyn Lager, Brooklyn
Pennant Ale, Erie Railbender, Stoudt's American Pale Ale, Flying Fish ESB and Flying
Fish Farmhouse Ale, among them.
The menu will feature a fine selection of food (Sotland comes from a
catering background that has been realized in the selection of items at Mikey's
so patrons should expect the same level of quality and variety at Tabu and not
your typical bar menu), including such highlights as: Buffalo style wings (hot or
mild) with Jim Beam bourbon glaze; Cajun-battered cauliflower with a parmesan
cream dipping sauce; crostinis with three dipping sauces of white bean garlic,
spicy hummus, and tomato basil; spinach salad with sliced steak, sliced mushrooms,
Mandarin oranges, red onion with a sun dried tomato vinaigrette; grilled
portobello mushroom sandwich, avocado, sprouts, roasted red pepper and tomato
on a Tabu roll; butternut squash ravioli with brown butter, sun dried cranberries
and walnuts; and Salmon "Spa Style"
with Julienne vegetables in parchment paper.
For more information, visit tabuphilly.com/blog
 Area beer lovers,
listen up! This weekend, today through March 14, Philly Beer Week, PBW 2010, (slated to return for its sixth annual
edition, June 4 through 13) is kicking off its long-anticipated (and, I guess,
couldn't-wait-any-longer) anniversary event. (Last year's PBW 2009 attracted
8,000 beer lovers, at
670-plus events and located at 156 venues.)
"Many participants just couldn't wait until June,
so we've coordinated this special one-year anniversary event to commemorate all
the fun we were having at this time last year and tide us over until this
summer's celebration," said PBW founder and noted beer columnist/author Don "Joe Sixpack" Russell.
"It's our
little tribute to PBW 2009 and a great excuse to enjoy some great beer here in
America's best beer-drinking city while we anxiously await the Opening Tap of
PBW 2010," he confessed.
Russell said that the special weekend "will be
anchored by two major happenings: The
Sixth-Annual Brewers Plate, a festival that partners
craft brewers with the region's top chefs and offers guests an unparalleled
food-and-beer-pairing experience with proceeds donated to charity; and The
First-Annual Craft Beer Express, a chartered bus tour of eight top beer
bars, each of which is hosting a special PBW(end) event, featuring
transportation between each bar on private buses that will depart every half
hour all day long."
Participating venues for the weekend are quite
varied, citywide and outside the city, for example, in Wayne, and will include:
City Tavern, Sidecar Bar and Grille, London Grill, The Belgian Café, O'Neal's,
Good Dog Bar, Johnny Brenda's, Standard Tap, The Institute, Brauhaus Schmitz, Devil's Den , Jose Pistola's, Kite and
Key, Tria, Pliny the Younger, Supplication, McGillin's Olde Ale House, Swift Half Pub, The Grey Lodge Pub, Teresa's Café & Next Door and Penn Museum.
Proceeds from the weekend events will benefit the Fair
Food Farmstand in Reading Terminal Market, a year-round venue for local,
humane producers, growers, farmers and fishers to sell their wares.
For more information and complete calendar of
events, visit thebrewersplate.org
comments@QUEERtimes.net
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What They Said and Did!
Thom Cardwell
copyrighted 2010
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 On Karl Rove's father's sexual orientation,
regarding the review of his tell-all memoir, "Courage and Consequence: My Life
as a Conservative in the Fight": "He [Rove] blasts journalists for raising
the issue at all -- in his eyes it's purely a liberal gambit to criticize him
for his views on homosexuality. Rove launches a well-honed rebuttal -- a skill
learned long ago, no doubt, on the high school debate team -- that comes across
as part analysis and part dismissal. 'Could Dad have been gay?' he asks,
acknowledging that his stepfather had gay friends and volunteered at an AIDS
project. 'To this day, I have no idea if my father was gay. And, frankly, I
don't care. He was my father, with whom I had a wonderful relationship and whom
I loved deeply.'" -Karl Rove as told to Steven Livingston (The
Washington Post, March 7, 2010).
 On the issue of coming out, MTV's "The Real World
XXIII: Washington, D. C., bisexual, LGBTQ activist at HRC, future film actor
and business major at University of Northern Colorado, talks about sexual
orientation on national television and to his family: "Before
talking to him [my father] he thought that gay people, that it was just a phase
or they were acting out or it was some sort of rebellion, And I had to convince
him that it wasn't the case. . .This is just how I was born and that's all
there is to it. I couldn't really change it, and I wanted to tell them [,my
parents] so that they would be a greater part of my life. . .it's okay now. .
.I've brought a boyfriend home and they're okay with it."-Mike Manning,
cast member of "The Real World XXIII" (OutFront Colorado, February 10, 2010).
 On the death of novelist J. D. Salinger and his
rightful place in the history of American Literature: "It
hard to how to mourn a recluse-all we have is the absence of an absence. Maybe,
at least, this will be good for the one part of Salinger that never left us:
his books. It strikes me as unfair that 'The Catcher in the Rye' has come to be
ghettoized, over the years, as a slightly embarrassing young-adult novel-a
stick of gum to chew on your way to the big square meal of Hemingway or
Fitzgerald-and that Salinger's name in invoked most often as dismissive shorthand
for the kind of self-satisfied uptown preciousness you find in, say, a bad Wes
Anderson movie. Maybe this second layer of absence-his new, permanent,
involuntary invisibility-will bring people back to the living richness of his
work."-Sam Anderson ("Social Salinger," New York, February 8,
2010).
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