the monthly Burgh Bear events

the Burgh Bears
a semi-quarterly newsletter for Pittsburgh’s bear club
December 2000
The Burgh Bears is a social group intended to
provide a place for bears
and their admirers to
meet each other. Some
people have defined
“bears” as “big, hairy
men”; while this is certainly a working definition, we aren’t particularly hung up on it, or
about it.
We try to make the club a
reflection of what the
members want, so the
more involved folks get,
the better the club will
be. We encourage and
welcome suggestions for
events, activities, or procedural issues.
While the whole “bear”
thing has grown enormously over the past few
years, sometimes in
goofy ways, there are still
many gay men out there
who don’t see themselves or their attractions
reflected in the general
public’s opinion of attractiveness. Bear clubs provide an alternative, and
that’s why we think having a local bear club is
important. If you want to
come hang out with a
bunch of big hairy gay
men, regardless of your
state of big and
hairyness, give us a call.
Get up for the get down
Welcome to the last newsletter of the past millennium. Not surprisingly, this is later than it
should be (I blame cable, specifically “The Secret History of Bikers” on the Travel Channel and
“The Power Puff Girls”) but we’re squeaking in under the holiday wire. The club’s bigger than
ever, we’re way past the 100 name mark on the mailing list (even after pruning a bunch of dead
addresses), and about 36 people have paid their dues. Our treasury is sitting well after a few
very successful bar nights (thanks to Tim, Danny, Travis, and everyone else who helped out)
and Rich Fox’s decision to give the club the money he had left in his Mr. Pennsylvania Drummer fund after he stepped down from the title (which was around $170). I’m guardedly hoping
that this will allow us to organize some bigger events, or at least get and stay in the black
financially.
Speaking of organizing events, we’ve had a slight reorganization of management, as Travis is
handing off the Event Manager position to John Brown so that he can concentrate on college.
We hope to have at least a rough calendar for 2001 completed before the end of January. If
you’d like to help with event planning or execution, drop a line to the club and we’ll make sure
we give you a call. Upcoming events include a holiday potluck at Jim and George’s house on
12/16, a trip through Hartwood Acres to look at the lights on 12/17, and a camping trip to
Roseland (in West Virginia) with the Mountain State Bears on 1/20-21. For more information,
check the BBear web site (at <http://www.burghbears.org>) or call the BBear phone line at
412-422-8850.
Yes, that URL is correct: we finally registered “burghbears.org”. We’ll be gradually moving
everything over to that address, starting as soon as Brian and I can run some networking cable
to get the servers set up somewhere besides our very chilly basement. One of the big changes
will be to move the email list off Egroups, which is still dropping messages (and which has
changed hands again—now it’s owned by Yahoo!, so who knows what’ll break now). If you’re
worried about missing messages, check the archives on the Egroups site for each mailing list. If
you’re having problems, please let us know so we can gripe at them.
Incidently, there are presently three email lists: “burghbearsinfo”, which is moderated, and
“burghbears” and “burghbearschat”, which are not. The former is only for event and clubrelated discussion; the latter are for any sort of discussion. If you’re interested in signing on to
any of these, check out Egroups at <http://www.egroups.com> or drop us a line at
info@burghbears.org and we’ll send you the subscription info.
As the last thing I have to type for this year, I’d just like to thank all the people who’ve helped
out with the club, either by hosting events (sometimes at the very last minute), or selling
things, or by spreading the word about the club or helping out in some other fashion that I’m
forgetting right now. Thank you. The club wouldn’t be here without you.
–Dan Bidwa, erstwhile Burgh Bear manager
P.S. If you’ve called or written and you don’t
hear from us, it doesn’t mean we hate you, it
just means that we’re not as organized as we’d
like to be and we probably did something
stupid like losing your address or phone
number. If the wait’s too long, please drop us
another line.
The club at the annual picnic
the monthly Burgh Bear events:
first 8:00p.m.: pizza at Napoli’s (2006 Murray Avenue)
wednesday: 9:00p.m.: bowling at Forward Lanes (5844 Forward Avenue)
second
tuesday: 7:00p.m.: monthly meeting at Tuscany Cafe (1501 East Carson Street)
third
saturday: 10:00p.m.: bar night at Liberty Avenue Saloon (941 Liberty Avenue)
fourth 7:00p.m.: potluck and game night at BBear member’s house
saturday: (location varies—check web site or phone line)
f
f
f
f
Events subject to rescheduling and such; call the BBear Phone Line (412-422-8850) to make sure.
The Burgh Bears
P.O. Box 81244
Pittsburgh, PA 15217
412-422-8850
info@burghbears.org or
burghbears@hotmail.com
http://www.burghbears.org
Manager: Dan Bidwa
Digital Manager: Brian Gollum
Web Manager: Tim L.
Event Manager: John Brown
Money Manager: Thom Lambing
Bear at Large: Travis Lewis
The newsletter is published quarterly (give or take), and anyone is
welcome to submit articles, artwork, photographs, or whatever.
Deadline for the next issue is
theoretically March 30.
What was playing when this newsletter
happened: Refused—New Noise
Theology; Deep Puddle Dynamics—The
Taste of Rain; Melvins—The Maggot;
godspeed you black emperor!—f#a#∞;
A Perfect Circle—Mer de Noms; Sad
Rockets—Transition; Warp 10+1
Influences compilation; Agoraphobic
Nosebleed–Honky Reduction
Camp Davis Aftermath
(no, it’s good…)
A whole pile of folks were up at Camp Davis for Arktos’ “Bears in the Woods” back
in August. Fun was had, sunburns were, um, burned, and hey, somebody took
pictures. Here’s a sampling of what’s available on the BBear website in the “Gallery”
section. Thanks to all the folks who took (and submitted) the pictures, and thanks to
the guys in Arktos for throwing a swell event.
This is the Burgh Bear tent city that the group
site became, with about ten tents packed into
the site, along with two screened enclosures,
two campfires, and various numbers of tiki
torches. Privacy was low; camaraderie was
high; some of the tiki torches went a bit out of
control. People who vacuum out their tent in
the morning make many enemies.
Sitting around in the front of the site...
...and in the back of the site.
...and off to the side of the site. This is Bob and
Charlie’s version of roughing it. Charlie grew the
flowers himself.
Talented John.
Suave Thom.
Thom’s tent was
very cute, but very
tiny, and was
deemed inadequate
fairly early in the
weekend.
The whole gang, starving for the sake of
documentation
Bear events for the new millennium
While the obvious reason to go to other cities for bear events is to get busy with humpy guys who don’t know your entire
life history or your last five ex-boyfriends, a less obvious reason is to go meet other neat folks who are fun to hang out
with. Of course, this requires that you actually talk to people at these things—they do require a certain degree of
outgoingness, but probably far less than you actually possess.
december
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March 23–25: Bear Hunt 2001; Las Vegas, Nevada; BlackJack
December 15–17: Midwest Bear Fest; Indianapolis, Indiana;
Bears of Las Vegas; P.O. Box 12869; Las Vegas, NV 89112-0869;
$65;Midwest BearPack; P.O. Box 771; Indianapolis, IN 46206;
702-225-4513; bjbears@blackjackbears.org; <http://
317-216-9588; <http://bearpack.org/events/Bearfest/index.html>
www.blackjackbears.org/index.html>
january
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January 12–15: La Fiesta de Los Osos; Tucson, Arizona; $75 until
12/15; Bears of the Old Pueblo; P. O. Box 43910; Tucson, AZ
85733-3910; 520-327-1620; fiesta@botop.com ; <http://
www.botop.com/>
March 29–April 2: Texas Bear Round Up; Dallas, Texas; $75 ($90
after 1/15); Dallas Bears; P.O. Box 191223; Dallas TX 75219; 214521-5342 x880; secretary@dallasbears.org; <http://
www.dallasbears.org>
January 20–21: Burgh Bears and Mountain State Bears go camping
at Roseland Campground in WV; details forthcoming.
april
January 27: Black and Blue Ball; Anchorage, Alaska; The Last
Frontier Men's Club; Eastchester Station; P.O. Box 202054;
Anchorage AK 99520-2054; 907-337-6593; info@tlfmc.com;
<http://www.tlfmc.com/>
february
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April 27–29: Out of Hibernation; Indianapolis, Indiana; Hoosier
Bears of Indiana, Inc.; P.O. Box 702; Indianapolis, IN; 462060702; 317-375-7923; info@hoosierbears.org; <http://
www.hoosierbears.org/ooh/index.html>
February 15–19: International Bear Rendezvous; San Francisco,
California; $100 ($115 after 1/5 until 1/30); Bears of San Francisco; may
May 11–13: Bearfest 2001; Washington, D.C.; $95 ($105 after 5/1);
2215R Market St #266; San Francisco, CA 94114-1612; 415-541Highwaymen TNT; P.O. Box 545; Ben Franklin Station; Wash5000; info@bosf.org; <http://www.bosf.org/ibr/ibr2001.htm>
ington, DC 20044; 301-839-3099; hwymentnt@aol.com; <http:/
February 27–March 4: Bear Essentials; Sydney, Australia; $120AUS
/www.dcpride.org/highwaymen/bearfest.htm>
($140AUS after 12/31); Harbour City Bears, Inc.; P.O. Box 86;
May 24–28: Bear Pride; Chicago, Illinois; Great Lakes Bears; P.O.
Erskineville NSW 2043; Australia; info@HCBears.com; <http://
Box 578840; Chicago, IL 60657; 773-509-5135; bp@glbears.com;
www.hcbears.com/be2001/>
<http://www.glbears.com/Bear_Pride/bear_pride.html>
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march
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March 6–8: Big Stuff Bash; Palm Springs, California; $140+ ($150+
after 12/31); Big Ad Productions; P.O. Box 14725; San Francisco,
CA 94114; 1-800-672-3287; bigbash2001@aol.com; <http://
www.chubnet.com/bigstuff/bash/main.html>
R
S Y LV E S T E R ’ S
COSMIC RAINBOW ART
TAT
TOO
880 F OURTH A VENUE , N EW K ENSINGTON , PA 15068
724-337-9676
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March 4–11: "Cruisin' Bears" Southern Caribbean Cruise; $684+;
Ursa Travel/Sophisticated Traveler, Inc.; 285 Governor Street;
Providence, RI 02906; 800-333-5929 x124; ursatvl@bigfoot.com;
<http://ursatravel.com/ncl.html>
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April 18–22: Spring Thaw; Seattle, Washington; Northwest Bears;
1122 East Pike St., PMB 802; Seattle, WA 98122-3934; 206-9039288; sigguy@nwbears.org; <http://www.nwbears.org/>
May 25–28: Bears in the Woods; Hillside Campground (Gibson,
Pennsylvania); Northeast Ursamen, Inc.; P.O. Box 2042;
Hartford, CT 06145-2042; 860-848-3214 x2042;
eventcoordinator@ne-ursamen.org; <http://www.neursamen.org/hillside.htm>
y
n
a
c
c
a
s
f
e
u
t
1501 East Carson Street
a restaurant a coffee shop
a bar a place for bears
HEY!
Pay your
dues!!!
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P.O. Box 81244
Pittsburgh, PA 15217
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More Camping Pictures
From the available pictures, you’d think the club only ever went camping. Really, it’s not true—some of our events are in
cities too. These pictures were taken at the Roseland campground, and are also available on the “Gallery” page at the BBear
website. We’ll be heading back down to Roseland January 20-21 for a winter (indoor) camping weekend with the Mountain
State Bears, so give a yell if you’re interested.
Todd, Steve, and Keith hanging out
around the campfire.
Tim subdues the wild potato.
Dennis vanquishes
the domestic folding
chair. Or maybe
that should be the
other way around.
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