A sneak peek at The 'Out'port's February edition, which profiles Tommy Sexton - a famous Newfoundland comedian who brought the hit Newfoundland Television show Wonderful Grand Band to national audiences as Codco. He later died of AIDS, and his family holds benefits in his memory to raise money for AIDS research.
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And a map of the main LGBT hot spots in St. John's.
It's a little saddening how fast things change.
Almost all of the gay spots of my youth are gone. Hava Java, Aqua, and ABBA are the only places left - and I never went to ABBA because it's a B&B. Zone 216 (the city's longest-lived gay bar, and one of the most popular full stop. At 3 a.m., when the straight bars closed, the Zone would fill to bursting for the last couple of hours of drinking), eTomik, the Darkroom (St. John's flirtation with the raunchier side of gay nightlife, leopard-print couches, curtained booths built into the walls, elaborate cocktails... it was so much fun. And just across the back alley from the main gay bar, so you could leave the pounding and go have a quiet drink/laugh)... they're all forgotten.
It is nice having a gay bar back in the space Velvet now occupies. It's the same location as Madame's, one of the first gay bars.
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And one more thing, a blast from the past. There were a few LGBT pop songs here in the 1970s/1980s, encouraging LGBT people living in rural Newfoundland to move to St. John's for better options. There was (and still is, in many areas) a lot of homophobia in rural areas. And, even where there wasn't... in villages and towns of 100-1,000 people, LGBT people are unlikely to have many relationship options.
This is the only one of those songs available on YouTube.
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