I can't believe I almost let this one slip by me. Tomorrow night at Morgan Auditorium I implore you to be a part of the Alabama Arts for AIDS benefit presented by The University of Alabama's Department of Theatre and Dance Musical Theatre Outreach Group, Celebration! The beautiful, talented, enigmatic, slightly inebriated Laura Ballard is heading this event up and you will not want to miss it. Don't act like it's Dead Week so you're going to study, study, study all night. Come support this group and the wonderful talents that make it up. It begins at 7:30pm and will run til 10:30 pm approximately. The event page says "am." Ignore that. Be there in the evening. Now I'm currently not sure if it's an asked donation, a set fee for entry or what. Just have a little cash handy as it is a benefit. I'm excited to see what they bring to the stage and know you are too. Because you're going to be there. And that's that.
Follow the image to the FB event and RSVP.



Over and Out,
CampusQueer

Where's all my thick gurls? This Thursday evening you can be a part of the nationwide event Dining Out For Life right here in Tuscaloosa to help benefit WAAO and AIDS Alabama. While Birmingham has usually been the closest place to go for this event, we are very lucky and proud to have OPUS in downtown Northport open their doors for us this year. Be a part of the fight against AIDS just by having dinner. Show up ready to eat between 5pm and 10:30pm Thursday, April 28, and at least 25% of your ticket will be donated to WAAO and AIDS Alabama respectively. Bring all your friends and let's make a night of it; not only showing support for WAAO, but also for OPUS for joining us in our cause. Check out the FB event page by clicking on the event poster and RSVP now! I will see you there!


Over and Out,
CampusQueer

Tomorrow night your can attend either Tee Time presented by Fashion, Inc. or the Resonance spring show. I'm positive that Resonance will deliver a hell of a performance, but I'm invested in the CTID. Hell I'm doing graphic design for them all over the place. And just a side note, and not to offend whoever did it, but the Resonance poster is a little much with the color palette. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to read any of the information. Okay moving on.

Both events begin at 7:30 so you have to choose. Tee Time will be featuring designs from the CTID students and made from recycled t-shirts donated by various student organizations on campus. The $5 admission goes to PieLab in Greensboro. The reception afterwards will feature an auction of the clothing seen from the tented runway on Doster Hall lawn as well as PieLab pies.

Break a leg Resonance and make it work Tee Timers.


Over and Out,
CampusQueer

You know gurl. I've been on my soapbox for you before. But I may be busy clipping my nails this time. First of all, this font looks like a monkey got aholt of Powerpoint. Is the Haus of Gaga just wasted all the time now? And is this like some play on "Harley-quin"? That would at least be clever. The artwork release was coupled with a line from an album song entitled “Highway Unicorn (Road to Love):”

Well I'm no business professional, but I assume that trannies don't make it far in the hiring process. Except maybe for RuPaul's Drag Race or Dr. Witt's receptionist offices. You can put on your zoot suits and your business best, but there exists a far more telling presence than yourself. Your online presence. Your "fame monster." What does your facebook and twitter say about you? Mine sure as hell says alot that I may not want everyone to think. I know that and I STILL let things invade it that make me just look like a damn tranny hot mess. And on some accounts, I may just be. But that doesn't mean I need to sling my cat around the Internet willy nilly. It's time to edit myself. And you should do the same.

Social media may be killing us.

I don't think that means forsaking everyone and acting like Mr. PrissyPants PoostyTwat. Just edit. Look at what you have, figure out what says what about you, and make decisions that protect your future rather than make you look cute now. Because what's fun now is just sad later. We are drunk off Facebook and the hangover is coming gurl.

Some of you already do this. Good. Some of us don't. Or perhaps think we do, but don't. My Birmingham momma (C. R.) always warns me of the potential danger I pose to myself with the tranny show that is my Facebook. I know he's right. I know to fix it. I just haven't because the real world has been existing outside of my happy bubble of college life. With a year before that bubble bursts, I'm now faced with the reality that has been looming. I want to be a wedding designer. What bride wants a cracked out, bumbling little boy putting together the biggest day of her life? Well, not a bride that I want at least.

I think once we all hit that senior year or so, it's time to start getting our shit together. Wouldn't you agree? Be proactive. Don't just try to even clean up your act. Polish it. Start creating a true presence that people want to look at. Invest in yourself. As RuRu always says, "If you can't love yourself, how the HELL you gonna love anyone else?" I think that fits into the moral of this story.

Don't let your own talents be marred by your "Facebook Fame." Edit yourself and evaluate what really matters. Gays have more fun. We all know it. We no longer have to prove it. So that one photo with you motor-boating a drag queen while spilling a drink on a gap tooth lesbian may have to go. It doesn't mean we're going to forget it happened.

Control, right-click, delete. 


Over and Out,
CampusQueer

Today, April 15, is marked as the annual Day of Silence. Across the nation supporters of the gay community take a vow of silence to observe and bring attention to anti-LGBT bullying and harassment in our schools. Spectrum is providing handbills you can pass out to people you encounter to let them know you aren't speaking and inform them of why. I already have a handful prepared in my purse. As well as the silence from 6am-6pm there are other events coinciding with the Day of Silence.

Noon
When you get hungry, you can be a part of a silent lunch at the Ferg with members of Spectrum. I think a large silent area could be interesting in that shit show so the more, the better.  

3pm 
The fabulous women of the Alapine Community near Mentone, AL will be at the Ferg Forum to have an open discussion. On Day of Silence? Well just bring a whiteboard and we'll play pictionary. I have heard only wonderful, wonderful things about these women who in live in an all-lesbian commune and look forward to finally meeting them.


6pm
Breaking the Silence event at the Ferg Game Room with a reception following will close out the day with a few speakers I presume as well as the awarding of the Elliot Jackson Jones Scholarship courtesy of Capstone Alliance, the faculty LGBT organization. Come have some snacks, break your silence, and do some mingling!

Get your handbills. E-mail professors to let them know you won't be throwing your two cents in for the day. And don't go through any drive-throughs. I went to the door at the ChicK-Fil-A on McFarland last year and wrote down my order. (PS - Still going strong on the Chick-Fil-A boycott. Werk.) Make this simple gesture to encourage people to think about the words they say with cruel intentions. School was rough. You remember. Be silent for them.


Over and Out,
CampusQueer

So I'm sitting in my wedding planning class this morning. I want to design other people's weddings. Obviously not my own since me sitting at home knitting sweaters for my cats with a another man filing our convenient tax breaks we receive as a married couple would indeed not please Jeeeeezus. Where was I? Wedding class. 9am. Right. Now these other sorostitutes are in there planning their own weddings I have come to assume. Today's subject was "Life After Marriage." I sit in the back because I'm tall, always late, and a tad poosty. I'm watching these girls take notes and it's like a damn marionette show. Every little thing has to be written down for later examination. They aren't even listening anymore for fear to lack a punctuation mark.


Everytime, all those little noggins bob down and you can hear their hot lead furiously scratching away. Then they look up and await their next vital piece of information. It. Drives. Me. Insane. Just listen dammit! Notes are to help you later recall. Not to publish a dossier. That is what is wrong with us. With me and you and your cousin Billy who has this fabricated, capitalist dream disease called "ADHD." (No, it's not a disease. It's a reason to sell parents drugs because they're kids are being to kid-like.) What's wrong with our generation is PROCESS.

We don't know how to think, process information and adapt it, or form ideas. We want A, B, C, or D. And we want it now. Did we get it right? Can we move on to the next question? Are we the winner on the Price is Right?!

But it's not our fault. It's George Bush's. As usual. No Child Left Behind began its haunt while we were getting to the age of standardized testing. It demanded that teachers be assessed on how well students performed on those standardized tests. So teachers said, "To hell with actual instruction! Let's just make sure they can get the majority of those answers right so we can move on and I can pay my rent another month." So here we are now with no ability to implement things we are supposed to learn. Fortunately in college, professors have room to be professors. Too bad their students are too slack-jawed and note obsessed to hear them. We have got to learn to let go. You can't think or be creative by being rigid and stuck inside your damn iPod bubbles. Jot down helpful notes and listen for once. 

Oh and none of that applies to bullshit core classes. No. You can just figure out A,B,C, or D for those and take notes. They already expect you to I guess.

Take it for what it's worth or not worth. Take out your earbuds. Look people in the eye. Listen. Comprehend. Utilize. Because what happens when your A, B, C, or D become an essay exam? What do you really know?


Over and Out,
CampusQueer

Photography by CAL - As seen at Alabama Art Kitchen.

There's something significant about a lesbian discussing love and sex with a throng of queers and queer-likes from a porch in Alabama next door to a worship center while a car bee-bops down the alley blaring "Born This Way."

Porches have always been significant in southern culture. We like big wide porches where we can drink sweet tea, discuss who we do and don't like, and wave at the passerbys who may come our way. In theory at least. I personally think a porch is a private stage where one can slip on a dainty corset and werk, drop, and werk. Last night a few brave people werked the stage at the Alabama Art Kitchen as part of a reception for the Breaking Boundaries queer art gallery put on my Creative Campus. (Those kids are really growing on/impressing me.) I was a tad late as my pit stop at the bar took longer than expected after that last one goldschlagger shot. You know how it is. But anygay, Brenna Horrocks shared stories of her own as well as a professor, Wendy Rawlings, who read from her book The Agnostics. It was a tad long-winded for someone with the attention span of a limp tulip, but it sparked this appreciation for what it really was that they represented. They were sharing personal moments on this porch. This stage. It was out loud and unashamed and really beautiful. And we gathered on the small stretch of earth and spilled onto government sidewalks and street pavement and we listened. Not just a handful even. I said earlier a throng. Not just because it makes me giggle. But because it was such a large group of queers that are diverse even in their own queerality. Activist gays, party gays, fag hags, academic lesbians, and just straight up homosexuals by nature were all there.

Brought together by art.

It's what unites us. All art has a way of erasing the lines and bring us together for at least one night it seems to me. Whether it be hanging from a wall downtown or leaping across stage on campus, we appreciate expression. I personally appreciated the expression of my face as one of the pieces last night. Was not expecting that I'll assure you. You can see the photography of Corey Lollar, the writings of Brenna Horrocks, and absolutely more if you stop by the Alabama Art Kitchen this week. If you're confused where it is, its on University Blvd, past the two 69 bridges on the right. Figure it out from there. Go be united by art. Be a part of our collective expression just by popping in for a mere five minutes.

Thank you to Creative Campus, Leigh Thomas, and all the contributors for initiating this expression and making a stand for queer art!


Over and Out,
CampusQueer