What is this "Happy Hour with Cameron Stiehl" thing anyway?
Monday, November 12, 2012 at 2:42AM Allow me to share with you my Concept Summary. It may be a bit rough, but we're getting there.
Tagline:
Building Bridges…One Cocktail at a Time
Concept:
“Fear is the highest fence.” – Dudley Nichols
“Let’s break it down.” – Cameron Stiehl
As humans, we fear the unknown. We are nervous around strangers and doubly so around strangers who seem very different from us. But sit down with a stranger over a drink, open up a bit and have a good heart-to-heart talk? Many times, you’ve made a friend by the end of the night.
So, I’m inviting the world to happy hour to meet my friends. Not just any friends…these are amazing, strong, passionate gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals who are living fulfilling lives, serving their communities and contributing to the world. And they have stories. Sometimes juicy, sometimes sad, often hilarious—and always inspiring. These tales are full of hope. And I’m going to get these guests a little drunk and make them spill them all. I believe that once you get to know us, the fear and fences will disappear.
Taking the “It Gets Better” concept one step further, I want to show how much better it can get. What do young gays grow up to be? How do they survive young adulthood, family issues, oppression, adversity and coming out? What careers do they go into? How do they serve their communities?
Goals:
- To show LGBT youth what they have to look forward to.
- To give straight culture a chance to get to know who we really are—beyond the stereotypes—so that, hopefully, the fear of the unknown (and therefore hatred and mistrust) can begin to dissipate.
- To bring more integration into our own community and show how all of us can get along (gays, lesbians, drag queens, etc...so much is unknown and segregated, even among ourselves.)
Guests Just Waiting to Share: (OK, this I'm keeping a secret for now, but please...if you are interested in participating in any way, please send me an email, text, comment, carrier pigeon, etc. I want to hear your story!)
Why Me? Who the heck is Cameron Stiehl, anyway?
I’ve been through it, too. At 14, I was blessed enough to fall in with an amazing group of kids (at a drama festival, shocking!) that were the most fun, creative, intelligent, crazy people I’d ever met. I was in love with them all instantly. After spending a day or two dashing from play to workshop to god-knows-where with these kids, one of them felt the need to confront me directly. His name was Johnny and I will never forget him.
“Cami,” he said. “You know we’re all gay, right?”
Ok, I might have had an awareness that they were different somehow than the rest of the kids there, but I think that’s why I felt so comfortable. The only surprising thing to me was that there was a name for it. Gay. And that it was a secret, something to be ashamed of and kept quiet. My mind reeled.
You see, I was brought up in a very liberal way by hippies. Anything-goes kind of hippies who considered “The Joy of Sex” to be a coffee table book. I had assumed the whole world was bisexual (not that I knew there was a name for that either) like me (THAT I knew) and that was the way it was. But this was different.
It was at that point I began to learn and understand about love in all its differently defined forms—and the hatred that accompanied it. It was ON. It became my personal mission to defend myself, Johnny and all those wonderful kids (and the hundreds more I have been lucky enough to become friends and/or lovers with since) from all the ignorant, and sometimes violent, people out there that just don’t get it—yet. They will.
We’ve come so far in the past thirty years since that drama festival but there’s still a ways to go. We don’t have equal rights. Scared kids are still being bullied by their peers—or worse. People are still losing their jobs, friends, family, and sometimes their lives…all because of who they love. I say bullshit. I say come have a drink with me and my friends and let’s build some bridges between us—one cocktail at a time.
Reader Comments (5)
Dear Cameron,
I love the idea, but I got a little hung up on the working title: "Happy Hour." I'm all for "happy," but "happy hour" invokes bars and alcohol. The LGBTQ community has suffered (and continues to suffer) more than its fair share of drug and alcohol addictions. And such an overwhelming share of our community events and our social lives -- especially when we're young, and just coming out -- is built around the bars.
If I could imagine a utopian world for young LBGTQ folks, it would be one where a person didn't ever have to get comfortable being in a crowded bar in order to find community.
Joseph Mott
Hi Joseph,
Thank you for your interest and your well-informed words. While the format and theme for our show is indeed Happy Hour, it is good to give the topic of addiction and other issues with alcohol in our community some serious thought. We definitely intend to encourage moderation and responsibility as well as discussing addiction and recovery with some of our guests.
Thanks again for taking the time to highlight these important topics.
Best always,
Cameron
Dear Cameron,
First, I wanted to echo Joseph's comment above - while I am not sober, have no objection to participating in an alcohol-themed interview project, and think there's room for disagreement as to whether the issue is within the scope of your work, he is absolutely correct about the lack of sober queer spaces in our society and how that can be difficult and hurtful to many queer people. Even if you don't find space to include that perspective in your current work, I think it is one that could do with being voiced and considered more often.
I think this is a nice idea and I'd be interested in participating, with some misgivings. I'm a trans woman currently working in biomedical research and heading to medical school nest year. The "it gets better" project has been a source of some frustration for me, however - the fact is, for many trans people, it doesn't get better. I'm happy to do what I can to be an inspiration and example to others but I think that alone - the story of a white upper middle class well-educated queer person who's had a lot of support and a lot of good breaks - might send a really distorted message. I worry that just saying "hang in there, buddy, you have a lot to look forward to" will come off as insulting to LGBT youth who know damn well that they have to take any opportunity they can to survive, and that they just plain don't have the same chances I've had. Is this a familiar criticism to you? What are your thoughts about how these problems might intersect with and influence your work? I'll submit my contact information through the page on your site - looking forward to talking to you soon!
Definitely leave your contact information for me as, yes, I would love to talk to you about your story and address some of the issues you brought up. Very much looking forward to it! Thanks so much for your interest and sharing your story and your time with us.
Best,
Cameron
Dear OD,
Thank you, thank you for your interest and taking the time to share your story. YES! I want to hear more and will be contacting you soon.
Your points are precisely why I got so passionately involved with this project. Ok, it gets better...AND? HOW? I feel that the actual stories of sharing the journeys we've been through will be way more beneficial than any "hang in there, buddy" could possibly be. Life is rarely simple and just waiting it out doesn't solve anything. So how did we get through it when times were hard? What made it worth it? Who helped? Who didn't? That's the good stuff I'm really looking forward to talking about with you and the others on the show.
I am currently creating a list of people to interview and it is (and I'm so grateful for this) growing madly. You're on it!
I'll be in touch as soon as our little company reforms over the next few weeks and gets rolling!
Thanks so much,
Cameron