Tawdry Heartburn is the latest manifestation of the many alter egos of Perth performing artist, James Berlyn, whose previous larger than life incarnations include the likes of Crystal Balls,  Farrah Fawcett of 'Hairquake fame', and Donna Frock. Make no mistake, however, Tawdry may be a qualified nail technician but he is all male.

The man who once upstaged Rue Paul by a good 15 centimetres (of wig) is inviting anyone with a personal crisis, past or present, to pop into the Beck’s Music Box during the Perth International Arts Festival and “get it off your chest” over a nice manicure. If you have a ticket to one of the many Music Box events or plan to attend any of the free festival events to be found there every night on the late side, then get yourself an appointment.

Tawdry will professionally paint and polish your nails, James tells us, while inviting you to consider divulging an anonymous secret via his collection of antique typewriters. Cough up your darkest secrets and type out your innermost thoughts onto some note paper—anonymously of course—and slip it quietly into the supplied confessional box. Your deepest desires, grandest heartbreaks and most perverse passions will then become part of an art installation for the duration of the festival. Should you by some chance develop an addiction to unburdening your soul, you'll be invited to join Tawdry's Facebook page and become a Twitter follower.

Tawdry Heartburn’s Manic Cures is James Berlyn's most recent work and premiered in 2008 at Connections nightclub. It later won the jury prize for the most innovative show at the Putting on an Act season 2009 at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art. Tawdry will be at the Beck's Music Box down on the foreshore every Friday, Saturday and Sunday of the Perth International Arts Festival (PIAF). Go on, you know you want to...

While we have a lot to celebrate and be proud of this Australia Day, there is a growing danger that the values that many of us identify as being "Australian" are under threat from a new and harder-edged sense of nationalism.

There has been a lot of discussion in recent weeks about the growing number of young Aussie men walking around with tattoos of the Southern Cross adorning their bodies. I first noticed this late last year, when I thought it very strange that I had seen two people with a Southern Cross tattoo during one grocery shopping expedition to Maylands. There is nothing wrong with this, in itself, of course – of all the things people get inked, the Southern Cross is not the least attractive design. However, it is becoming a little unoriginal and the cohort that are adopting it in this way are spoiling my love for this national symbol.

As we approach Australia Day, I find myself reflecting on my identification with being Australian. I find myself thankful that I live in a country with such abundant wealth and opportunity, thankful that my country gave me a good education and continues to provide me with a first class public health system; thankful that I don’t have to pack a gun when I leave the house and that our environment remains relatively unspoiled. On top of being thankful, I am proud of every achievement our relatively small nation makes on the global stage, whether it be our successes on the sporting field, our humanitarian efforts or our achievements in academia and science, however I am conscious that most of these achievements are possible only because of the great wealth and natural advantages that we have been blessed with.

What I am not proud of is the changing sense of national pride that the increasing number of Southern Cross tattoos represents. Whereas, Australian national pride used to have a bit of a cutesy, self-deprecating, not so serious feel to it, it appears to now have a much harder edge – an edge which sees many young Aussie blokes define their sense of Australianism through a common understanding of who is and who isn’t an Aussie. White, Anglo-Saxon (heterosexual) male – Aussie. White, Anglo-Saxon (not fussy) female – Aussie chick. Everybody else – un-Australian. And in case you can’t identify them as being Aussies, they drape themselves in flags and inscribe images of the Southern Cross wherever you can see.

Of course, it doesn’t take a Rhodes Scholar to identify this new trend’s origins. There is a generation of young Australians, who I call the Howard Generation, that grew up during the post 9/11 noughties learning to hate Muslims and suspect anybody with a dark beard (Muslim, Sikh, Hindu or just plain dark featured) of carrying a bomb. By the political design of their creator, the Howard kids paradoxically learned to hate the people fleeing the oppressive regimes of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein and arriving by boat in Australia as much as they hated the oppressive regimes themselves.

The Cronulla Riots in 2005 saw the Howard Generation make their first step onto Australia’s public stage, with hundreds of white, Anglo-Saxon Aussie blokes draping themselves in the Australian flag and hunting the local Lebanese in packs. While I am not naive to the actions of some Lebanese men that sparked the riots, the fact that our national symbols were adopted by young, white Anglo-Saxon Aussie men and the issue depicted as an Australian versus un-Australian battle was disturbing and both a national shame and international embarrassment. Of course, the situation was made worse in the weeks ahead as Big Day Out organisers decided to ban Australian flags from their events. Naturally, this caused patrons to bring Australian flags on mass, giving rise to the increased flying of the flag and adoption of the Southern Cross that we see today.

There was a time that I saw the Southern Cross as an alternative national symbol to the Union Jack, much the same as I saw Waltzing Matilda as an alternative national anthem. These days (and possibly because I only have the Boxing Kangaroo to fall back on), I have come to the realisation that the symbols we choose to represent our sense of national pride are irrelevant. What defines us more, both at home and abroad, is how we, as a people of great wealth and natural advantage, treat those who are less fortunate and possibly different than ourselves. And, in this, despite all of our wonderful achievements and gifts as a nation, I am not sure that we are progressing.

I was sitting at a bar in Johannesburg recently and a black South African, upon learning that I was an Australian, told me that he recently considered moving to Australia... but heard that Australians were too racist.

Who would have thought?

Pride Treasurer Andrew Baietta’s open letter in the January edition of Out in Perth raised concerns about the effect that events staged by GAYinWA have on the performance of Pride events.

We understand that we are not alone in being blamed by Mr Baietta for Pride’s financial woes – in a comment left on one of our blogs, he blames his fellow committee members as well.  That said, we can only answer for ourselves and given that Out in Perth does not have a letters page or a forum for community members to discuss issues, our reply takes the form of this post.

Given that Out in Perth did not give us the opportunity to include a response to Mr Baietta’s letter, which was disappointing (but not surprising), given the highly targeted comments in the letter and the questions Mr Baietta raises about our motives and integrity, we provide the following as a response.

Interestingly, nobody from the Pride committee has ever raised concern over our events with us, nor have they ever knocked back the cheques we have handed them for funds raised at our events, which they have even been known to attend and request free drinks at from time to time.

That said, we understand that we might be an easy target if committee members are seeking someone else to blame for the more than $70,000 turnaround in Pride’s financial performance in 2009, with the organisation set to record a loss of approximately $35,000 (subject to audit).  We understand that we are not popular in some sections of the community for questioning the relevance and future of the Pride Parade, but we don’t shy away from leading a debate that has to be had.

If Mr Baietta read our discussion paper closely, he will have noted that we believe that the Parade needs to continue because of the important role it plays for young people in our community.  However, we believe that a change of format is necessary if the long-term decline in participant and spectator numbers is to be arrested. Interestingly enough, the options we ourselves raised for the future of the parade were clearly discussed at the recent Pride forum, and reported as "news" in Out in Perth.

In his letter, Mr Baietta refers to our observations that Parade spectator and participant numbers have declined over time.  He uses his own observation that Parade participant numbers increased slightly in 2009 (on the back of free entry in the Parade’s 20th year) and dismisses our views, and the views of many within the community, that the Parade needs to change.  In addition, his comments potentially lead readers to conclude that by expressing these views about the Parade, we are seeking to undermine Pride events to the benefit of events that we stage.  In effect, Mr Baietta is seeking to discredit the discussion we are leading about the Parade by discrediting us.

Mr Baietta raises questions about whether life members of Pride WA should be permitted to stage events that he contends compete with Pride events and make it harder for Pride to make ends meet.  This is consistent with a comment he left on one of our blogs a few days ago, in which he says that it is “appalling” that we stage events.  We would be interested in the views of our readers on this topic.  But first, we would like to give you a little bit of background on GAYinWA, because we feel that we are sometimes unfairly misrepresented.

GAYinWA was started in September 2006 as a news web site.  At the time, there was no regularly published LGBT newspaper in Perth, with Out in Perth not having been published for months.  GAYinWA was incorporated as a small business with five individual shareholders including: Gavin McGuren, who was a co-founder of Pride, Gay & Lesbian Equality and WA's first gay newspaper, the Westside Observer (forerunner to Out in Perth), which he edited for 13 years; Daniel Smith, a former long time committee member and co-president of Pride WA, Fiona Wong, a former long-time Pride WA committee member and volunteer and Nigel Etherington, a long time community photo-journalist.  Both Gavin and Daniel are Pride life members.  None of us is employed by GAYinWA and we effectively work as volunteers within our own business.

Throughout 2007, we focused on developing our web site and we realised some revenue through online advertising.  Heading into 2008, we decided to stage events and made a conscious decision to stage all of our events well clear of the Pride Festival, so as to offer our community opportunities to be entertained and to socialise throughout the year and so as not to compete with Pride events.  We also made a conscious decision that we would contribute part proceeds from all of our events to local community groups.

In March 2008, we launched Love All at Loton Park Tennis Club, which was an outdoor food and music event.  In its debut year, this event did not make a profit, but GAYinWA donated $1,000 to Loton Park.  In April 2008, we launched the GlamFest Gay & Lesbian Film Festival in partnership with Melbourne Queer Film Festival.  In its debut year, GlamFest performed well and we were able to donate $1,265 to Gay & Lesbian Community Services (GLCS).  In October 2008, we staged the Great Gay & Lesbian Debate as a part of the Pride Festival and were able to donate $700 to the GLBTI Retirement Association (GRAI).

In December 2008, we staged Christmas deLuxe at Luxe Bar and we donated $900 to Pride WA.  In January 2009, we sponsored the play Vincent and we donated a further $700 to Pride WA.  In February 2009, we again staged Love All at Loton Park and, despite attendances increasing, the event again did not make a profit.  However, given Loton Park’s precarious financial position at the time, we donated $3,000 to Loton Park.  In April 2009, we again staged GlamFest and we again raised more than $1,200 for GLCS.  In July, we launched the Cocktails & Girls cocktails night for lesbians and their friends, with Laura Foster (initially as a one-off event) and we have raised more than $1,500 for cancer research, as well as donating a further $300 to Pride WA.  In October, we again staged the Great Gay & Lesbian Debate, with GRAI raising about $1,000. And, in December 2009, we staged Christmas deluxe again, raising $500 for GLCS.

In December 2008, we launched WAX Magazine in partnership with Evolution Publishing.  Unfortunately, it was the wrong time to launch a magazine and, given all the work we were putting into our events, we over-committed ourselves and we had to make the difficult decision to discontinue this venture.

Going forward, we have a summertime debate scheduled for 21st February, which will also raise funds for a local community group, GlamFest scheduled for April and we are soon to make some announcements regarding Love All.

Because we are a business and not a community group, we understand that it is easy for people to point the finger at us and question our motives. (Interestingly the motives of other business, gay and straight, that target the community are not questioned.)  Given we are spending a lot of time talking about Pride’s financial performance, we are quite happy to share ours with the community as well.  Since our establishment in 2006, we have made a loss of approximately $10,000 and the donations we have given to community groups, including Pride WA, have come out of our own pockets.  Unlike Pride, we are a business and, as such, we are not eligible to receive the more than $65,000 in local and State Government funding that Pride receives to underwrite its core events.  We have to earn every dollar we spend and we have to watch our expenses.  This is the first time that we have shared this information with the community because we haven’t viewed it as being important – it is our way of making a contribution to the community.  However, given that we are now accused by Pride’s Treasurer of staging events that damage the performance of Pride’s events and of doing this for “self gain” we feel the discussion needs to be balanced with this information.

It is also worth noting that we have never received a thankyou letter from Pride for the contributions we have made.  We have also received negligible coverage of our numerous donations to local community groups in Out in Perth, with this perhaps contributing to the fact that the reality of GAYinWA is somewhat different to the perception of some.

So... Pride suffered a turnaround in its financial performance of $70,000 in 2009 and recorded a loss of about $35,000.  Given Pride achieved new sponsorship of $4,000 from Heathway in 2009 and achieved savings of $6,000 by changing the way it performed its book-keeping and administrative functions, the deterioration in the financial performance of Pride’s events in 2009 is more like $80,000.  Given the amount of space Mr Baietta dedicated in his open letter to the impact of Pride life members staging events, you would think that this was the main factor behind Pride’s problems.  While the claim is not supported by the comments of either Pride co-president, we can understand the logic behind Mr Baietta thinking that Cocktails & Girls may impact on Pride’s monthly Women’s Sundowner.  However, we think it patronising and ludicrous if Mr Baietta thinks that Perth lesbians, numbering apparently just a few hundred, only leave the house once a month or that all lesbians like hanging out with only other lesbians and attending the same venue.  Plus, given Pride’s women’s sundowner historically only raises about $600 a month, we find it difficult to believe that the total impact of Cocktails & Girls, or the three times the Pride committee changed the sundowner's venue in 2009, could amount to much more than $1,000 – a tiny fraction of Pride’s financial deterioration.

It is similarly ludicrous if Mr Baietta thinks that GAYinWA staging Love All in February damages Fairday in September, or GAYinWA staging GlamFest in April damages the Pride film festival in October.  In fact, in his comments on our blogs, Mr Baietta has not yet acknowledged that, in the year that GlamFest debuted at Astor Cinemas, Pride staged its most successful and well attended film festival ever, just six months later, at Cinema Paradiso, with Kieran Bycroft putting together an amazing programme.

In a comment on one of our recent blogs, Mr Baietta refers to our donations to Pride as “token.” It might be true that our total cash donation of $1,900 in 2009 might be small when compared with the $70,000 deterioration in Pride’s net revenue in 2009 or its $35,000 loss.  However, we think our contribution significant, particularly when you consider we also made a loss during that time and when you consider that the only business to donate more cash to Pride WA during the same period was Connections Nightclub.  In fact, V-Energy’s sponsorship in 2008, the loss of which Pride attributed much of its ills to in the recent Sunday Times article, amounted to only $3,000.  Token indeed.

In his open letter, Mr Baietta implies that GAYinWA should not stage the events we currently stage and that this will help Pride with its financial problems.  Absolute nonsense.  Should the WA AIDS Council cancel StyleAID because Pride now stages a Ball, or Sunset Coasters discontinue, because Pride has resurrected Fruits in Suits?  Of course they shouldn’t – and nor should we stop doing what we are doing simply because Pride has had a bad year and made poor decisions.

In the upcoming community forum and Pride Annual General Meeting, we will be happy to address GAYinWA’s role in the community.  However, we hope this discussion isn’t used as a distraction from the real questions, such as why 1,000 people abandoned Fairday last year, why 500 people less people attended the party, why Pride realised a $70,000 deterioration in net revenue in just one year and what format the Parade should take in the future.  We will also assume that, if GAYinWA, as a business that is a net contributor to Pride WA, is to be subject to such scrutiny, then we will also have an open and frank discussion about those businesses that are net beneficiaries of Pride WA and the events it stages.

Our experience, both during the time we served on Pride committees and sub-committees, and during the time that others have done the heavy lifting, is that Pride is at its best when it focuses on its core events.  Historically, in the years that Pride returns a profit, the committee of the day has prioritised working hard to ensure Fairday, the Parade and the Party are all successes.  In the years that it has returned losses, it has often been because committees have become overambitious, often with good intentions, and committed to new events and expenditure.  Our view is that Pride has a bright future if it listens to the community, reshapes its core events to make them more reflective of contemporary community needs and then focuses on those events, without getting distracted.  With Pride rarely having a committee that is more than half full, it is ridiculous for anyone to claim the answer to its problems is for other organisations to stop staging events and for Pride to become the only organiser of events for LGBT Western Australians.

People and organisations with the resources, passion, ideas and energy to stage new events for our community should be welcomed and supported, not criticised - particularly if they are willing to take on the financial risk themselves and especially when they are willing to donate their profits to local community groups.

Have we got it wrong?

The people that bring you The Great Gay & Lesbian Debate during Pride month every October have returned to launch another new exciting event for Perth's LGBT community, with GAYinWA Events staging a Summertime Debate outdoors in Luxe's beautiful bamBOO lounge on Sunday 21st February, from 5pm.

Patrons will be warmed up by the funky tunes of dj dirty den, before our star-studded lineup of debaters take to the bamBOO stage to discuss the topic, "we don't want marriage anyway!"  Perth MLA John Hyde will be joined on stage by celebrity lawyer Patti Chong Greens MLC and community icon Giz Watson, newly elected Maylands MLA Lisa Baker, former Democrats Senator Brian Breig, Gay & Lesbian Equality Chair Rod Swift, former GLCS Chair Mark Woodman and former Pride Patron Aram Hosie.

The debate will be chaired by former Pride Co-President and newly elected Bassendean Town Mayor John Gangell and promises to be a riotous and comical affair, in the tradition of our October debates.

In addition to experiencing a highly entertaining and (hopefully) controversial debate, patrons will also be able to enjoy Perth's most beautifully made cocktails and order delicious gourmet pizzas straight from the wood fire.

A Summertime Debate will raise funds to help GAYinWA Events stage the GlamFest Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, which will be staged between 15-18 April, 2010.  Keep reading the GAYinWA blog for more details about Perth's premiere gay and lesbian film festival in the new year.

As with all GAYinWA events, part proceeds from the event will be donated to a local community group and we will announce details of our benefiting partner in the new year.  Over the last two years, GAYinWA events have raised more than $10,000 for local community groups, including more than $4,000 for Loton Park Tennis Club, $2,500 for GLCS, $2,500 for the GLBTI Retirement Association and $1,900 for Pride WA.

Only 150 tickets to this boutique event will be on sale.  Tickets are on sale now for $20 from Travel Forever on Barrack Street, Perth.  Credit card holders will be able to purchase tickets over the phone from 11 January by phoning 0428 425 023 (booking fees apply).  Tickets will be available on the door for $30 if available.

Check out highlights from the first Great Gay & Lesbian Debate below.

Wandering innocently along the edge of Sydney's Hyde Park on the weekend, my attention was caught by a flourish of rainbow flags down the end of an adjoining street.  As the rainbow flags approached and the chants from three or four thousand marchers becane audible, I realised that I had stumbled across a rally for same sex marriage.

At the front of the rally was a very strong voiced lesbian woman, whose cries of "waddawewant?" and "whenawewantit?" were met with very resounding responses of "equal rights!" and "now!", respectively.  Fair enough - this was a parade with a very clear purpose.

But as my partner and I briefly joined the rally in search of a good photo, it occurred to me that the cause that this crowd was marching so passionately for was in the process of being dealt a very severe blow, with the religious right wing of the New South Wales Liberal Party in the middle of a highly orchestrated, and ultimately successful, coup against its moderate leaning, climate change believing and gay friendly leader Malcolm Turnbull.

Make no mistake, the leadership ructions within the Federal Liberal Party over the last week were not about personalities, leadership style or electability - they were about policy, philosphy and the political underpinnings of the Liberal Party itself.  The Liberal Party has always been an alliance between true small "l" liberals, who believe in free enterprise and the freedom of the individual, and right wing capital "C" Consveratives, who also believe in the freedom of the individual, except in areas of religious or philisopical importance to them.  Capital "C" Conservatives are often characterised by opposition to same-sex marriage, abortion and other personal matters on relgious grounds.  The new Liberal leader, Tony Abbott, is one of these.

The result of today's leadership ballot, which saw Mr Abbott defeat Malcolm Turnbull by a margin of only one vote shows that there are many progressive people within the Liberal Party.  However, the fact that Mr Abbott prevailed is bad news for people who thought that the defeat of the Howard Government and ultimate ascension of Malcolm Turnbull would steer the Liberal Party and, hence, Australia in more progressive, forward thinking and tolerant direction.  This progressive experiment is over and so is any hope of bi-partisan support for things like emissions trading, the republic and same-sex marriage.  While others may disagree, I truly felt that, with Mr Turnbull as leader, there was some hope of same-sex marriage reform in the dying days of a Gillard Government or in the early days of a Turnbull Government.

The last Liberal Prime Minister, John Howard, sought political advantage by introducing ammendments to the Marriage Act in 2004 to ensure gay and lesbian people could not marry our partners.  If anything, Mr Abbott is regarded as being more conservative than Mr Howard on issues such as these, meaning that we cannot expect Liberal Party support for same-sex marriage reform anytime soon.

AND ANOTHER THING

Today marks the 21st anniversary of World AIDS Day.  In 2009, and in its 24th year of operation, the WA AIDS Council remains at the forefront of the fight against HIV / AIDS.  To learn more about the WA AIDS Council, click here.

The staging of a gay and lesbian parade was again rejected by Bunbury City Council this week.  Last week, Cr Wayne Majors sought Council support to investigate the feasibility of staging a parade in Western Australia's second largest city, but failed to find a seconder for his motion.  At that meeting, the gallery was packed full of local Church group representatives, who presented petitions to Council opposing the event.  Local church groups were well represented again this week and Majors again failed to find a seconder for his motion.

Cr Majors has shown great courage to stand up and push for a major gay and lesbian event to be staged in Bunbury and the response of local church groups and his fellow Councillors reveals that there may be a need for such activism to build acceptance of openly gay and lesbian lifestyles among community leaders.  That said, a parade or any other gay and lesbian event or service will only get off the ground in Bunbury or any other regional centre if there are local gay and lesbian people willing to get together, identify the events and services they want and then work together to make them happen.  If there are people in Bunbury who want to work together in this way, then they will have a great ally on Council in Wayne Majors.  The current debate has created a great opportunity to get something off the ground in Bunbury - even if it isn't a parade.

Thousands of sun lovers at Australia's most iconic beach received a pleasant surprise last weekend when drag artiste Joyce Mange and a hundred backing dancers became a flash mob and entertained them at Sydney's Bondi Beach, where the weather has obviously been more summery than in Perth. Surely Perth's most iconic beach is ripe for the mobbing? Naturally the westside would have to up the ante. Say, two drag queens and 200 flash mobbers, doing the Eurogliders "Heaven Must Be There' (just for some added local flavour) at the launch of Sculpture by the Sea? Pity that silly pylon was rebuilt at ridiculous expense without so much as a platform on which to perform. Better be quick though. Cottesloe is a blue-ribbon Liberal seat and flash mobs are bound to be on the list of things to be banned in the next parliamentary sitting.

Last night's decision by Bunbury City Council to reject a motion by Councillor Wayne Major to investigate the feasibility of staging a gay and lesbian Parade in Bunbury shows that, seven years after the Gallop Government and the Greens ushered in Australia's most progressive gay and lesbian law reforms, there is still a long way to go before true acceptance is experienced outside of inner city Perth.

Councillor Major's motion wasn't even put to a vote, with not one other Bunbury City Councillor willing to put up their hand to support the motion.  Reportedly, the Council gallery was stacked full of delegations from local church groups, who presented petitions opposing the staging of a Parade in Bunbury.  This should be hardly suprising, given the views of Reverend Dick Scallan, as expressed in a letter to the South Western Times last week.  In reference to the Pride Parade, the Reverend said, "hatred of God comes from the sin of 'pride'  It is contrary to the love of God, whose goodness it denies, and whom it presumes to curse as the one who forbids sin and inflicts punishment." Please - is he suggesting pride had nothing to do with the fact that both the Catholic and Anglican cathedrals are perched on the two tallest hills in the town?

Apparently, a handful of local gay and lesbian people were present at the Council meeting, but felt too intimidated to get up and speak.  I don't blame them.  I grew up in Bunbury and remember how conservative religious folk were.  As the people interviewed in this WIN News story a couple of weeks ago reveal, Bunbury remains a pretty conservative place.