No naughty talk, no more Glam
The only thing worse than a woman scorned? A drag queen told to clean up her act.
But that’s one thing David Richart did in his first week as executive director of the Lifelong AIDS Alliance in Seattle. He got the job one day, went to the National Conference on AIDS the next, then came back to Seattle last Tuesday to begin contract negotiations with Glamazonia, the reigning queen of Lifelong’s signature fundraiser, Gay Bingo.
It wasn’t pretty.
Staffers were asked to undergo anti-harassment training, and Glammie (aka Thom Hubert) was included.
Richart asked Glammie to sign an agreement saying she would ease up on the sex talk, and stop using two words that offended some Gay Bingo sponsors and participants.
Glammie questioned the request, and I can’t blame her. Asking a drag queen to cut the innuendo is like asking Edith Piaf to not sing in French.
“I never claimed that I couldn’t or wouldn’t work under those conditions,” Glam said. “I just needed their help in interpreting them.”
Glammie asked to take the same training as Lifelong staffers but said she was “canned with no further comment.”
Lifelong disputes that, saying it offered to train her, with pay, twice: “Thom never followed through in getting in touch with our HR manager,” said spokeswoman Asia Rau.
So after seven years, and some $12,000 raised each month, Glamazonia is gone.
“I think we can still have a gay, sassy Gay Bingo without having to go to those depths,” Richart said.
I hope he realizes that Glam’s will be very big heels to fill. (Full disclosure: I won the New York trip at the last black-tie Gay Bingo.)
Doing that, though, is one of many things in store for Richart, who has been at Lifelong since 2000, first as the director of education and prevention, then as director of programs.
The number of gay men diagnosed with HIV has been stable for the past 10 years, according to Public Health - Seattle & King County. That gives Lifelong a chance to extend its hand to other communities in need of food and medical care.
East African and Cambodian immigrants are just beginning to cope with HIV, Richart said.
And other clients suffer from drug dependency or other hardships. For example, one client was paralyzed in the 1998 Aurora Bridge bus accident and has meals delivered.
But doesn’t that bother the core group, the gay community that few deigned to help when the AIDS crisis first hit?
“You see a need and go out and get some help,” he said.
Richart, 53, is the father of five kids, ages 19 to 26.
“We have great relationships,” he said of his brood.
It wasn’t easy. Richart came out in 1990. Not long after, he was told he was HIV-positive. It was a false diagnosis, but it led to a true calling.
“I said that if I came out of it, I would devote my life to the cause,” he said. He left work as a drug-treatment counselor and joined up with Lifelong.
Richart is hopeful, despite the “baptism by fire” that was Glammie-gate.
“She is wonderful,” he said.
She is. Dirty mouth and all.
Nicole Brodeur’s column appears Tuesday and Friday. Reach her at 206-464-2334 or nbrodeur@seattletimes.com.
She will still send Toblerone.