The superficiality of the gay community

The superficiality of the gay community

I think one of the things I would like to cover today concerns the superficiality of the gay community in southeastern Wisconsin. As a person way beyond the age of 30 I see our obsession with youth, our obsession with clothing or glamour as the case may be and our penchant for entertainment. Yes we do have an LGB T. community center which houses project Q for our young people and other programs dealing with sexually-transmitted diseases and wellness. But most of the rest caters to business.

What I don't see any type of activity concerning those of us who of lost our jobs or any type of committee or organization geared to helping them get back into the workplace.
A RCW has a food pantry for those suffering with AIDS and HIV yet we only list tons of non-gay organizations that may or may not be gay friendly. My question is why haven't we started our own food pantry for people in the LGB T. community? Why haven't we started some kind of organization or group that can help those out of work find work in a gay friendly environment?

For years we have had more than one gay newspaper, for one reason or another, either from financial difficulties, mismanagement, competition or just plain all around general infighting many of these papers ceased to exist. First gay magazine I can remember was the Instep which was run by Ron Geiman and later sold to Bill Atwell and later taken over by Kate Sherry. The other a long-running newspaper was to Wisconsin Light run by the late Terry Boughner and Jerry Johnson. Unfortunately many gay publications are run on a shoestring with the cost of printing and distribution steadily rising along with the lack of advertising revenue from within and without our own community is a contributing factor in the demise of many of these publications. Another publication was the Quest magazine put out by Za. Almost of I should know that they history of the instep went through multiple publishers until its ultimate demise this last year. And of course let us not forget the infamous catalyst committee wanted to put news articles in the Shepherd express. And I totally believe that their actions resulted in the demise of the Qlife magazine, that and the lack of advertising revenue and support from our gay and gay supportive businesses.

Now I am one investigative reporter who absolutely refuses to sugarcoat the news. I am not looking for the bad things however I do believe we should get the news as it happens in an unbiased manner, if that is all possible. Cute columns like ask uncle Barbie and the latest gossip on the bar scene is all well and good. After all bar rag's serve their purpose as to gossip columns but I think what we really need is hard-hitting news about the things that are happening in our community. I guess I'm just plain sick and tired of reading about lady ga ga’s latest shenanigans at pridefest or wherever. Whether we going to wake up and smell the coffee?